Circulation Agreement In presenting this dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I agree that the Library of the University shall make it available for inspection and circulation in accordance with its regulations, governing materials of this type. I agree that permission to copy from or to publish this dissertation may be granted by the professor under whose direction it was written, or, in his/her absence, by the Dean of the Graduate School when such copying or publication is solely for scholarly purposes and does not involve potential financial gain. It is understood that any copying from or publication of this dissertation which involves potential financial gain will not be allowed without written permission. Biistino Velruies Mbarser-Behind the Veil: Envisioning Virginity in Old French Hagiography. By Kristina Watkins Mormino Doctor of Philosophy Department of French and Italian Claire Nouver Advisor AS Gh, FR 4 ‘Stephen D. White Committee Member Dean of the Graduate School 3/| o>Behind the Veil: Envisioning Virginity in Old French Hagiography By Kristina Watkins Mormino B.A, Rhodes College, 1992 Advisor: Claire Nouvet, Ph.D. An abstract of a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate Schoo! of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of French and ftalian 2003Abstract From the beginnings of the Church, Christians of both sexes have aspired to the bodily and spiritual purity of perpetual virginity, yet the virgin vocation developed as a religious path particularly for women. The gendering of virginity as feminine resulted in conflicting attitudes about the role of the consecrated virgin. On the one hand, in her rejection of courtship, marriage, and childbirth, this privileged figure stood distinctly apart from other women, and was sometimes regarded as surpassing men in virtue. On the other, as female, the virgin had to be both guarded from the fleshly desire of men and subjected to masculine authority. Thus, ecclesiastical authorities have attempted to mark, obscure, or reveal the consecrated virgin by having her wear a veil, or perhaps a specially designated veil, or even no veil at all. In fact, virginity ~ whether corporeal or spiritual — is by its nature veiled, since no human being can with absolute certitude discern those hidden elements that distinguish the true virgin. Virginity always problematizes human vision, because it can never be seen except by way of perceptible and metaphorical veils. ‘The first chapter of this dissertation explores Tertullian’s On the Veiling of Virgins and includes a critique of recent readings of this text by medievalists. Tertullian opposed vocational virginity and the visible privileging of virgins. ‘Through his treatise, I directly engage the gendered significance of the veil (and its absence) and investigate the threat which feminine virginity poses to masculine authority ‘The following three chapters examine Old French lives of celebrated virgins, most notably Saints Eulalia, Faith (Foy), Christine, and the Virgin Mary. My readings demonstrate that romance hagiography covers the virgin with layers of figurative veils that conceal, expose, and mark her virginity. One of these veils is the virgin’s name, which reveals her progenitor, model, and/or mission. Another is the martyrdom that in most of the legends serves as a proof and guarantee of virginity while calling that virginity into question. Finally, as the bride of Christ, the virgin must be viewed through a veil that fundamentally obscures her imitation of Christ.This dissertation is the culmination of years of study and struggle, during which 1 have been fortunate enough to enjoy the constant support of quite a few caring, individuals. So itis with the sincerest gratitude that I thank the many people who have sustained me in this project and in my graduate career. I would particularly like to recognize the considerable investment of time and energy by the members of my dissertation committee. Drs. Claire Nouvet, Stephen D. White, and Mark D. Jordan were wonderfully flexible in dealing with such an interdisciplinary topic. They were all extremely generous with their time and expertise, and each in their own way set me down the road to becoming the kind of medievalist | ultimately want to be. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Claire, my advisor, for spending a summer engaged every day with my work, challenging and illuminating me. I would also like to thank Dr. Elissa Marder, who as Director of Graduate Studies and a member of my committee provided me with invaluable support at times when it was very much needed. Tam grateful to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Emory University for funding my graduate studies through a Robert W. Woodruff Graduate Fellowship. Iam also indebted to the graduate students, staff, and faculty of the Department of French and Italian for a thousand favors, bits of advice, and answered questions. My final year at Emory was supported by a Robert W. Woodruff Library Fellowship. 1 especially wish to thank Martin Halbert, Director of Library Systems, for giving me the opportunity to work with the MetaScholar Initiative. The library staff was wonderfully warm and encouraging, and the fellowship year was nothing short of a mind-expanding experience. In addition, I would like to thank the many, many family members and friends whose humor, companionship, and love have seen me through six grueling years of graduate school. In particular, T wish to acknowledge my mother, Yvonne Tucker ‘Watkins, who more than anyone else is responsible for my pursuing a career in teaching and an advanced degree, and my father, Ronald E. Watkins, whose boundless energy and unflagging resolve were beacons for me during difficult periods. Above all, I wish to thank my beloved husband, James Michael Mormino, for his innumerable sacrifices and his ever-waxing love. He saw me through countless small crises with a bit of tech, support, or a joke, a grimly determined chorus of “gettin’ there,” or a sparkle of pride in his eyes. This dissertation absolutely would not have been accomplished without him, and so I affectionately dedicate it to him.Behind the Veil: Envisioning Virginity in Old French Hagiography By Kristina Watkins Mormino B.A., Rhodes College, 1992 Advisor: Claire Nouvet, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate Schoo! of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of French and Italian 2003UMI Number: 3103823 Copyright 2003 by Mormino, Kristina Watkins All rights reserved UMI UMI Microform 3103823, Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Mi 48106-1346Contents Introduetion: The Veiled Vocation Gendering Virginity Virginity Veiled 1, Veiling and Vision: Tertullian and the Maiden’s Head ‘The Head of a Woman Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven On the Unveiling of Virgins 2, Seeing Faith Witnessing Virginity The Jewel and the Truth of Faith The Veil of Flames 3. Evidence and infegritas: Mary, the Bride, and the Martyr The Vow of the Virgin The Sponsa Christi and the Amie Dew 4. Christian by Name and Christian by Nature: Saint Christine and the Name of the Father ‘The Name of the Rose Rejecting Paternity, Renouneing Maternity Martyrdom, Marriage, and Motherhood Conclusion Bibliography 7 7 37 sl 69 69 5 108 123 123 133 187 157 165 179 194 205Figures 1. Duccio di Buoninsegna, RucellaiMadonna, tempera on wood, ¢.1285, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy, deposited in the Church Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy. 2. Reliquary-statue of Sainte Foy, human remains, wood, gold, and precious stones, ninth and tenth centuries, Treasury of the Abbey Church of Sainte Foy, Conques, France. B 105Introduction ‘The Veiled Vocation Gendering Virginity The virtue of woman is, in a special sense, purity. It was this that made Lucretia the equal of Brutus, if it did not make her his superior... Jerome, Adversus Joviniam 49 Why should virginity be viewed as a vocation for women in particular? For at least seventeen centuries, Christian writers have tended to gender virginity in this way. But surely, men may be virgins! In fact, many of the same writers have claimed that men are by nature more elevated in spirit, more reserved in the body, and generally more capable of sexual restraint, Moreover, as Ambrose is not alone in asserting, the originator of Christian virginity was in fact male; none other than Jesus Christ, himself; “And what is virginal chastity but purity free from stain? And whom can we judge to be its author but the immaculate Son of God, Whose flesh saw no corruption, Whose Godhead experienced no infection?”' Indeed, virginity became a monastic and ecclesiastical ideal largely in imitatione Christi. And yet, throughout two millennia of Christian writing and teaching on the subject, Jesus” presumed virginity has not prevented the figure of the virgin from being gendered female. Despite the ubiquitous tendency in religious works to use the words “chastity” and “celibacy” in regard to holy men and “virginity” when referring to holy women, asa virtue, virginity is in fact available to any Christian, young or old, noble or plebian, female or male, so long as s/he has not already engaged in sexual intercourse. 7 Ambrose of Milan, Concerning Virgins, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 24 ser. eds. Philip SchafT and Henry Wace (New York: The Christian Literature Co., 1896), vol. 10, St. Ambrose: Select Works and Leters, 1.6.21It is when viewed as a vocation that virginity becomes uniquely feminine. Itis fair to presume that there have been many thousands of Catholic men who have preserved their virginity, particularly in those times when certain males spent virtually the whole of their lives from boyhood on in monastic communities and ecclesiastical offices. However, we can only conjecture as to their sexual inexperience, because the virginity of individual men has not, as rule, been made explicit through Church practice or writing. By contrast, since at least the third century, Christian women have made a public and binding pledge of their virginity? Moreover, hagiography, writing about the saints, reinforces the vocational aspect of feminine virginity. In the offices commemorating holy men and women, they are labeled in a way that explains the capacities in which they particularly served God, such as “pope.” “martyr,” “confessor,” “apostle,” and so on, Women, however, are most often designated by marital status, and the title of “virgin” is exclusively applied to them. Because men are not classified by their sexual status, but distinguish themselves through their ecclesiastical careers, in the legends of male saints, virginity only figures as a circumstantial quality, whereas in feminine lives, itis of the greatest significance. The vast majority of female saints are virgins,’ and the highest feminine rank in heaven is that of virgin." Indeed, the first profession of the intention to preserve virginity is usually traced to Mary’ confused reaction to Gabriel's announcement that she would bear a son: “How shall this be, since 1 have no husband?” (Luke 1.34 RSV) Because she was already betrothed to Joseph at the time of the Annunciation, this question is interpreted as indicating that she never intended to have conjugal relations with him, 7 Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Forgerfiul of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. $00- 1100 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), 127. . ‘This is made explicit in the writings of Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and Siricius against Jovinian, a fourth-century heretic, who championed the superiority of marriage over celibacy, tncouraged monks and nuns to marry, and denied the perpetual virginity of Mary. For his part, ‘Augustine does admit the superior rank of the sexually experienced martyr over the non-martyred virgin, Nonetheless, the virgin martyr trumps both, and the non-martyr Virgin Mary is queen of‘Most of the major Christian writings on virginity discuss the virtue by way of defining the vocation and prescribing the correct lifestyle and devotions to the women ‘who have embraced it. Cyprian’s De habitu virginum and Tertullian’s De virginibus velandis discuss the appropriate dress, comportment, and social status of the consecrated virgin in order to define how she should function within the Christian community. Ambrose’s De virginibus and Jerome’s Ad Eustochium give practical advice as well as spiritual encouragement to beloved women who have chosen virginity as a vocation. This trend certainly continued throughout the Middle Ages. Aldhelm’s eighth-century prose and verse treatises on virginity, both entitled De virginitate, were composed for the nuns of Barking Abbey, and the Middle English Hali Meidenhad and Ancrene Riwle were written to instruct female religious, as well, Certainly, these and dozens of other theological writings do address virginity as a virtue, extolling its spiritual essence, examining its role in redemption history, defining its relationship to various qualities such as humility and pride, and so on. However, the motivating intent is usually to address virginity in practical terms as a vocation. The texts therefore include copious advice on the proper virginal lifestyle, including such topies as dress, living arrangements, asceticism, and daily activities. Because virginity is seen as a vocation to be entered by women, and particularly ‘young women, the texts contain a strong sense of masculine responsibility to guide and contain the virgins, who significantly are neither subject to fathers or husbands. Moreover, they seek to answer a variety of key ontological and social questions, questions that J will also take up in this dissertation: Who can be classed as a virgin? heaven. (Augustine of Hippo, Holy Virginity, rans. John MeQuade , with a Foreword by Roy J. Deferrari [Boston: Saint Paul Falitions, 1961], 9-12 and chaps. 44-45.)How is a virgin to be disting ed? What is the role of the virgin within the Church/convent/Christian community? What is the status of consecrated virgins who lose their virginity through fornication, marriage, or rape? Works that treat virginity as a vocation are thus informed by specific notions of sex, gender, and sexuality, whether or not the feminine body is ever evoked. One may well wonder how virginity can be discussed without the body being evoked, especially the female body. Is virginity anything more than the body's never having experienced coitus? Even if one were to think of virginity as entailing a refusal of desire, this hardly seems to justify it being elevated to the status of a vocation, ‘whether masculine or feminine. Yet these widespread secular notions of virgin! that itis simply the renunciation of sex and desire ~ do not begin to encompass the complex concept of virginity as it has evolved through Roman Catholic writing and practice. ‘What, then, do Christian writers mean when they evoke “virginity?” What is their understanding of the virgin? It would be impossible, of course, to distill from the articulations of so many authors over the course of so many centuries a single concept of virginity that would do justice to the variations found in each of them, but for most, there are a few basic commonalities. Because one of these commonalities is that virginity pertains particularly to females, I will use feminine pronouns in order to discuss four fundamentals of what constitutes a virgin in the Catholic sense, First, a virgin is someone who has never had sex, and who makes a pledge within the Church to refrain from sex for the rest of her days, Continence, which as noted above is more often associated with masculine virtue, may be embraced byanyone, regardless of sexual history or marital status. Ifa person falters in this kind of sexual renunciation, s/he may renew his or her commitment to bodily chastity and begin afresh. Virginity, however, can admit of no breech whatsoever for as long as the virgin is alive. Because it is pledged in perpet is never fully accomplished until the virgin has died. Secondly, a virgin is someone who is pure and innocent in spirit, and who ‘makes a vow within the Church to work to preserve this purity for the remainder of her life. Chastity of spirit is absolutely essential to virginity, because the intact body has no value unless made holy by the purity of the soul. Thus, Augustine queries: Suppose a virgin violates the oath she has sworn to God, and goes to meet her seducer with the intention of yielding to him, shall we say that as she goes she is possessed even of bodily sanctity, when already she has lost and destroyed that sanctity of soul which sanetifies the body? Far be it from us to so misapply words. ‘That Christian virginity pertains more to the soul than to the body may also be judged from the vow of the virgin. The consecration of the virginity of the body begins with a profession of will on the part of the virgin. However, the double condition of bodily purity and spiritual chastity opens up uncomfortable gray areas in the conceptualization of the virgin. What is the status, for example, of the rape victim who loses corporal integrity against her will or the spinster who dies without having experienced sex, although she had wished to marry and have children and never took a vow of virginity? These sorts of possibilities lead some Christian authorities to define what constitutes the “true” virgin and what corrupts the “false” virgin, as Augustine does in the above scenario. In order to be incontestably considered a ‘Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Random House, 1950), 1.18.virgin, a woman must therefore be perceived as maintaining both spiritual and corporeal spotlessness. A virgin is thirdly someone whose sole desire is for Christ, and who makes the double pledge of her purity out of love for Christ. Its in part on the basis of this, criterion that authors view sacred virginity as a Christian innovation, dismissing the significance of virginity based on other factors such as a dualist repression of bodily pleasure. Virginity is not a refusal of desire, but a pouring of all desire into Christ Virginity may result in a woman’s rejecting family members, former friends, and potential husbands, Conversely, it may lead to her nurturing and tending to the needs of many thousands of people. However, if one is a true virgin, all of her actions stem from love of Christ, Fourthly, a virgin is someone who has received from Christ the capacity for bodily and spiritual integrity, but who must nevertheless struggle in order to maintain purity. Christ chooses those who will love Him through virginity. Anyone He has not chosen will never be able to manage the task. Because virginity requires a special gift, the virgin may be perceived as especially beloved of God, However, this perception, which could lead to haughtiness on the part of the virgin (thus canceling ‘out the pure love of God on which virginity depends), is just one of the innumerable ‘raps through which virginity may be lost. In addition, there are temptations of the flesh, familial pressures to marry and procreate, the constant threat of rape, the desire to have children, the lure of corrupting secular pleasures, and so forth. Even with the special grace granted from God Himself, the virgin must courageously battle all ofthese obstacles and snares without respite, because one false step, one moment of weakness, could result in the irrevocable loss of her virginity. In short, virginity in theological and hagiographical writings is much more complex than a corporal quality or an indication of marital status. In many ways, itis conceived of as a vocation. In the first place, itis a literal vocation ~ a calling or invitation — inasmuch as a woman must be summoned to it by God. It is also a vocation in the sense of being the virgin’s lifetime occupation, insofar as she must dedicate herself fully, tirelessly, and perpetually to achieving virginity. Then too, virginity is a religious vocation, because it is consecrated through a vow, which for the most part, has had to be sanctioned within the Church, Thus, whether the virgin becomes a nun or remains a lay sister, she typically assumes an exceptional formal relationship with the Church, that has social, economic, legal, theological, and ecclesiastical dimensions. ‘The four criteria of the virgin elaborated above explain why virginity is treated as a vocation, but nonetheless leave unanswered important questions that I will attempt to address throughout this dissertation. The most obvious is the still open question of why virginity is regarded as a particularly feminine vocation, Many men of the Church, and particularly monks, have achieved the goal of simultaneously maintaining bodily and spiritual purity for love of Christ, so why has this objective not been formalized through a public vow or encouraged as a manly ideal? Does the virgin vocation offer privileges to the women who embrace it that men may not attain? And is there something about the nature of the virgin’s bond with Christ that ‘would explain why women are more easily envisaged in that relationship than men?Indeed, there is some disagreement as to whether virgins, in triumphing over fleshly desire and in achieving an exclusive loving relationship with Christ, become the equal or even the superior of men. In any case, one must ask whether virgins, who do not stand in the same relationships to men that other women do, really funetion as women. ‘We must also examine the virgin’s special link to the Church and why that institution is involved at all in what is otherwise an exclusive relationship between Christ and the virgin, Symbolism has much to do with it, since the Church is frequently personified as a virgin or as the Virgin, Another important factor, mentioned earlier, is the need felt by male clergy to control women who are otherwise independent of masculine authority, Still, there is more to the relationship than the subjugation of the virgin. Virgins are not only privileged figures in the cult of saints, but they are also distinguished in the life of the Church. ‘This distinction brings us to the most difficult question of all: How can one distinguish a virgin? This question should be read in two ways. First, how can one tell on sight who qualifies as a virgin, when the basic criteria cannot be visually discerned? As Kathleen Coyne Kelly amply demonstrates with her book, Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages, even physical virginity cannot be accurately proved, and there is no method of ascertaining virginity that does not entail at least the possibility of its loss.’ Even if physical intactness could be accurately perceived, there would remain the problems of determining whether the virgin is, : Kathleen Coyne Kelly, Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 2000).spiritually chaste, whether her virginity is out of love for Christ, whether she has been graced by Him with virginity, and whether she possesses the virtue to see it through. ‘The problem of distinguishing the virgin may also be understood in another ‘way. How can the Church celebrate and privilege women about whom the current state of their virginity is not clear, and the future state of their virginity is very much. in doubt? If true virginity is consecrated and maintained solely out of love for Christ, then the flattering accolades of the Church certainly place the motivating focus of virginity and hence the whole endeavor at risk. Can the Church honor the virgin without endangering her virginity? Is there any way to take a salutary look at the virgin while keeping her safely obscured? Veiled It is good sense to conceal oneself When one supposes oneself to encounter evil. And nevertheless, God’s lady friend Did not hide herself at all from fear. Clemence of Barking, The Life of St. Catherine, lines 517-520 ‘The image of the veil appears frequently in writings on virginity, whether through explicit references to literal veils, or, as in the above exeerpt from La Vie de sainte Catherine, through evocations of the idea of veiling. In fact, while a veil does allow one to “conceal oneself,” it has two other important functions besides to simply obscure or render someone invisible. A veil also marks, visibly distinguishing the ‘one who wears it. In addition, a veil may reveal, foregrounding that which it fails to ‘cover, or even encouraging the viewer to peer through it, to discover what at first appears hidden.From practically the beginning of the virgin vocation, there existed a tension between these contradictory veiling functions in regards to virginity, a result of the conilicting programs of exposing and celebrating virginity on the one hand and. concealing and preserving it on the other. Thus, over time, different ecclesiastical authorities attempted to distinguish the virgin by having her wear a veil, or perhaps a specially designated veil, or even no veil at all. In each of these ways, the virgin was ‘marked out as a privileged member of the Christian community. However, at the same time, the virgin was made to wear the veil by way of concealing her and protecting her fragile virginity. This goal was also pursued with the figurative veils of cloistering, enforced silences, and other practices fostering the seclusion and obscuring of the virgin. Nonetheless, the Church developed a veil through which one might closely examine virginity, a veil that prominently reveals the triumphant (i.e deceased) virgin: the veil of hagiographical literature. Starting with the second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla, hagiographers began to commemorate the passions and miracle stories of famous virgins, who were held up as exemplars’ and venerated for their extraordinary intercessory powers. Latin vitae, or saints’ lives, were read as a part of both private and communal devotions, but of course, depending on the century and location, they might only be understood by a limited audience. Not surprisingly, the advent of vernacular writing ‘Virgin saints chiefly acted as exemplars for those who had already taken up a religious ‘vocation (both male and female). As we shall see, there were other figures in a saints life who could act as exemplars forthe laity. Young girls who decided to follow the example of legendary virgins often encountered strenuous resistance to their participation ina vocation that was likely to be disadvantageous o their families. In late medieval and Renaissance hagiographical texts ~ those that are more documenta than legendary —it becomes especially clear that every woman was not born into «social or economic situation in which she would be allowed to indulge in lifelong virginity. A chilling example of how far family members were willing to go to block a daughter's entry into thebrought about the unveiling of the more popular hagiographical legends through translation, ‘The earliest extant literary work in the French language is the late ninth- century Cantiléne de sainte Eulalie, a brief verse translation of the life of a Spanish virgin martyr. Later, in the twelfth century, there was a flowering in the translations of the lives of women, and especially virgins, in Old French,* a trend that continued throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. ‘The translation of vitae from Latin into Old French revealed sacred virginity to wider audiences in a variety of ways. Of course, the use of romanz (a term applied to various Old French dialects) facilitated linguistic comprehension,” but there were also other developments in the romancing of the lives that made them more accessible. The vernacular hagiographers tended to glorify the most time-honored and well known virgins, preferring the dramatic exploits of legendary martyrs from late antiquity to the documentable deeds of more contemporary abbesses, founders of religious houses, and contemplatives. In relating the legends, they used a more entertaining style, usually in rhymed verse, although the original Latin texts tended to be in a concise prose. As vernacular hagiography increased in popularity, the legends often underwent considerable elaborations, developing lengthy dialogues between the characters, so that the virgins who appear stoic and symbolic in the Latin and earlier virgin vocation may be found in The Life of Christina of Markyate: A Twelfh Century Recluse, ed. and trans. C.H, Talbot (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). * Excerpts from the tweifth-century lives of thirteen female saint, inckuding nine virgins, may be found translated into English in Brigitte Cazelles, ed. and trans. The Ladty as Saint: A Collection of French Hagiographic Romances of the Thirteenth Century Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991). It should be noted, however, that Cazelles views female saints a vietimized and suppressed through hagiography, and her editing and translating reflect this postition. Cazelles also includes a translation of the entirety ofthe Sequence of Saint Eulalia > ‘That is, reading and listening comprehension. The Old French verse lives include language that makes it clear that they were intended to be read aloud. This may in some cases be merely a literary convention, but it is noteworthy that even when the hagiographer identifies @ single person who hhas commissioned the work, s/he always adresses a larger audience.R French versions become increasingly human in the later translations.” Some even adopted elements of courtly romance, placing greater and greater emphasis on the noble birth and hyperbolic beauty traditionally attributed to the virgins. The Old French hagiographers also reveal more of themselves than their Latin counterparts usually do, frequently naming themselves and discussing their own relationships to the texts and their saintly heroines. In brief, romance hagiography created vivid images of virgins and their famous deeds, revealing them in their glory to growing audiences. Still, I do not want to suggest that the legends merely unveil the virgins. This hhas been a major claim in recent medievalist investigations of virgins in hagiographical literature, most notably in the work of Howard Bloch, Brigitte Cazelles, and Kathleen Coyne Kelly.'' Departing from this sort of reading, I will insist, rather, that the hagiographical narratives in fact metaphorically veil the virgins. For example, the great majority of Old French virgins undergo graphic martyrdoms of such shocking violence that their sufferings overshadow their virginity while seeming to be integral to it.'? The martyrdoms, too often seen as merely victimizing the © Consider that the ninth-century Cantiléne de sainte Eulalie is a mere twenty-nine lines. The ‘Anglo-Norman life of Saint Catherine by Clemence of Barking dates to the end of the twelfth-century ‘and is 2700 lines long. The former seems to have been written for use inthe linrgical office of the saint, The latter was intended, not only as a more accessible rendering of the Latin vita, but also as an ‘improvement onan earlier French version ofthe legend whose antiquated style was no longer pleasing to the ear. (Clemence of Barking, The Life of St. Catherine, ed. William Macbain [Oxford: The ‘Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1964}, lines 30-46.) 7 ‘See the chapter entitled “The Poetics of Virginity” in R. Howard Bloch, Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991); the second chapter of Cazelles commentary in The Lady as Sain, “Female Sanctty: Trial by Disclosure;” and the chapter entitled “‘ Armour of Proof": The Virgin and the Church in Hagiography” in Kelly’s Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages. ‘Of all the virgins whose Old French lives I have been able to locate, only three were not ‘martyrs: the Virgin Mary and Saints Marina and Euphrosina. These last two were both women who assumed masculine identities in order to join monasteries. Thus, their lives are attention-catching, yet the virgins themselves are radicaly veiled.virgins, bring into play an explicit problematization of vision, simultaneously contrasting truth with perception yet posing the possibility of discovering truth ‘through perception. Moreover, the virgins often employ veiled language or are depicted through veiled language. Although the pure maidens do not wear veils and in the course of their martyrdoms may find themselves completely disrobed, they inevitably assume the figurative veil of the bride of Christ. There are several powerful images through which the nature of virginity is revealed, but the image of the sponsa Christi ~@ motif on which I will focus my attention in this study ~ is the ‘most pervasive and has the deepest effect on the conception of the virgin’s relationships to God, to the other characters in the narrative, and to the reader. In this dissertation, I will examine the veil, or rather the multiple veils, which ‘mark, conceal, and reveal the virgin. I will also interrogate what is behind the veil, that is, what motivates various authors to present the virgin as veiled. In Chapter One, “Veiling and Vision: Tertullian and the Maiden’s Head,” I will begin with a treatise by the third-century theologian Tertullian entitled De Virginibus velandis or On the Veiling of Virgins. In it, Tertullian combats the notion, still in its infancy, of virginity as a feminine vocation and opposes the privileging of virginity through marking. He directly engages the gendered significance of the veil (and its absence) and the problem of publicly exposing virginity. With these considerations as a preface, in the ensuing three chapters I will examine the veiling and unveiling of virgins in Old French saints lives. I will pay especial attention to the language of the texts, particularly to their use of naming andimagery.'> In Old French hagiography, naming only seems to be important in the lives of virgins, Oftentimes, the name says something about the inner qualities of the saint: Margaret, for example, is like a margerie, a pearl, in her purity and beauty. The reader will not be surprised that Catherine of Alexandria is a young woman of surpassing erudition, because her name contains that of a city known for its scholars and library, The heroine’s relation to Christ or Christianity is more directly evoked in the names of Faith, Christina, and Agnes, whose chief virtue lies in her fundamental resemblance to the Lamb of God: ‘Angniel, pris pur mettre a mort, ‘The lamb, when taken to be put to death, Ne refert ne remord, Neither scoffs nor retaliates, Ne ceste ne voleit cuntredire Nor did that girl wish to gainsay Pur Dieu suftir grant martire...'* To suffer great martyrdom for God... In this passage, the linking of the lamb, whose function itis to die, and God, for whose benefit the maiden is sacrificed, transforms the saint into agnus Dei. Inscribed in her very name is her inevitable martyrdom, as well as the knowledge that her sacrifice is the will of God. Again and again, the hagiographers play on the virgins’ names and stress the importance of closely reading them, sometimes having the maidens themselves gloss them. Throughout this dissertation, I will repeatedly underline the necessity of carefully reading the name of the virgin, as it reveals her progenitor, model, and mission. "Until the 1980°s, medievalists paid relatively litte attention to vernacular lives of saints, Which tended o be viewed as imperfect or sensationalized translations ofthe correct Latin lives. In the eighties and nineties, the New Medievalism, strongly influenced by psychoanalstc, post-modern, and gender studies, brought with it an interest inthe grotesque and the feminine, and thus, there has been a ‘flourishing of work on sanctity, and especially the sanctity of women. Although recent studies on hagiography have recognized vernacular fives (especially in Old French and Middle English) as literary works in their own righ, there still has been less focus on that which is unique to each text (he ‘the use of language and symbolism), than on that which is common to many versions ofa single legend (ie the events of the narrative)In Chapter Two, “Seeing Faith,” I will demonstrate how the Anglo-Norman hagiographer Simon of Walsingham creates an allegory of vision in his thirteenth- century passion of Saint Faith, meticulously controlling the exposure and concealment of the martyred body that at first glance seems very much on display. By taking a detailed look at Simon’s metaphor of Faith as a jewel, 1 will address the problem of the virgin’s beauty, which, in most of the legends, attracts an unwanted desiring gaze. In the third chapter, “Evidence and Jntegritas: Mary, the Bride, and the Martyr,” I will turn to a fourteenth-century life of Mary, the Saincte vie de Nostre Dame, focusing on the nature of the vow with which the Virgin conseerates her virginity, a vow which constitutes her as the bride of Christ. My tracing of the sponsa Christi motif will reveal that for holy women, and even for virgins, there is always a problem of proving the level of one’s dedication to Christ. This problem lies at the heart of the linking of virginity and martyrdom. Chapter Four, “Christian by Name and Christian by Nature: Saint Christine and the Name of the Father,” considers the question of the virgin’s filiation from and imitation of Christ in Gautier de Coinei’s thirteenth-century Vie madame sainte Cristine. In order to manifest the resemblance and filiation obligated through her name, Saint Christine must reject both father and ‘mother, natural paternity and corporal maternity, participating instead in a Christic, virginal mode of propagation. Yet in this reading, as in those of the two previous chapters, it becomes apparent that for the virgin, the ideological veil that marks her as Christ's bride profoundly limits the possible ways in which she may be viewed. La Vie seinte Angneys, in The Old French Lives of Saint Agnes, ed, Alexander Joseph Denomy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1938), lines 17-20.‘Throughout this dissertation, I will explore the anxiety generated by the idea that the virgin might be unveiled, but I will demonstrate that in fact, there is no possibility that the virgin could truly be unveiled. To the contrary, virginity is by its nature veiled, and thus may only ever be viewed by way of veils, which always call into question the perception of the viewer. Moreover, I will show that the veiling of the virgin defines her along strict gender lines, in the process delineating her relationship to secular, ecclesiastical, and divine power."7 Chapter 1 Veiling and Visi Tertullian and the Maiden’s Head ‘The Head of a Woman ‘The word expressing the natural distinction is female. Of the natural word, the general word is woman. Of the general, again, the special is virgin, or wife, or widow, or whatever other names, even of the successive stages of life, are added hereto. Tertullian, De virginibus velandis, 4.5 In order to demonstrate the complexity of the ontology of virginity, I will use a text from the beginning of the third century: Tertullian’s De virginibus velandis. This text is frequently quoted by modern scholars of virginity, and especially medievalists, as part of a summary of the patristic thoughts that contributed to the ecclesiastical archetype of the virgin. Howard Bloch, Peter Brown, Brigitte Cazelles, Kathleen Coyne Kelly, Maud Burnett McInerney, and Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg all cite Tertullian’s text in order to establish what virginity means within theology and hagiography.’ Their use of his work is hardly surprising, for not only was Tertullian one of the earliest writers on sacerdotal virginity, the vocational consecration of a female virgin’s bodily integrity and service to Christ and the Church, but he was also arguably the most misogynistic, and therefore the most provocative for contemporary readers. De virginibus velandis contains several extraordinary statements that make it 1 Bloch, 94, 9-101,104-105, 108-109; Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 76-82; Cazclles, 48-49; Kelly, 18, 33, 91-92, 114, 142-143; Maud Burnett McInerney, “Rhetoric, Power and Integrity in the Passion ofthe Virgin Martyr,” in Menacing Virgins: Representing Virginity inthe Middle Ages and Renaissance, eds. Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Marina Leslie (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999), 60, 70; Schulenburg, 128.appear that feminine virginity is an impossible, or at least a highly improbable, proposition. However, citations from this treatise can be rather misleading when taken out of their textual context, and especially when removed from the context of Church history. If modem scholars discussed Tertullian’s paradoxical attitude towards virginity as strictly his own, there would be no problem with using this very contentious text. The trouble is that his thoughts are sometimes lumped together with, those of later thinkers, such as Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom, without the uniqueness of his text and viewpoint ever being acknowledged.” Of course, there is no doubt that Tertullian’s writings had some impact on other auctores of the Early Church. In his letter to the virgin Eustochium, Jerome recommended a reading of Tertullian,? and he also wrote a brief account of his life in De viris illustribus, claiming that Cyprian read his writings daily." Still, his influence was very limited, since as an adherent of what would later bbe known as the Montanist heresy, he apparently broke with the mainstream Church, a ‘As in Marina Leslie, -vading Rape and Embracing Empire in Margaret Cavendish’s Assaulted and Pursued Chastity,” in Menacing Virgins: Representing Virginity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, eds. Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Marina Leslie (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999), 182. This is also the casein the writing of Cazelles, Kelly, McInerney, Schulenburg, and especially Bloch. Brovn, who specializes in the history of early Christianity, quite clearly differentiates Tertullin’s attitudes towards sexuality, gender, and virginity from those of his successors, as does John Bugge, who makes frequent use of Tertullian’s corpus, but does not use De virginibus velandis. (Joha Bugge, Virgintas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975],) 5 Jerome, Letter 22 (4d Eustochium), in The Letters of St Jerome, vol. 1, trans. Charles Christopher Microw (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1963), 22.3.'Primarily, he recommen a lost work, “To a Philosopher Friend,” which seems to have detailed the woes of ‘marriage andthe freedoms of celibate life. He also mentions Tertullian’s “other treatises on virginity” which must refer to De virginibus velandis and possibly De Exhortarione Castitaris, although the tater is not specifically on virginity 4" Jerome, On Illustrious Men, trans. Thomas P. Halton (Washington, D.C. The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 533.and his writings may have been condemned in the fifth century.’ Thus, itis curious that nearly all of the modern scholars listed above use Tertullian when addressing vernacular depictions of virginity in the High Middle Ages, since he seems not to have been widely read until the end of that period, except through the brief citations of other Late Antique writers.© Any medievalist treatment of De virginibus velandis should take into account that the influence of that text on medieval theologians and, hagiographers was at best residual, and yet this is never acknowledged. As a result, the text is imbued with a greater importance than is its due, leaving the reader with the impression that it was highly influential, not because it was frequently copied or read in the Middle Ages, but because it has been so often commented upon in recent years. De virginibus velandis must be read in its own right. Tertullian wrote the tract asa response to a matter of local church politics, a specific situation in which virgin women were rejecting a signifier of feminine submission by worshipping in public without veiling their heads, as the other women were required to do. His concer was specifically for the Christian community at Carthage, and his polemic was focused on the arguments and potential counterarguments of his local opponents. This demonstrates that even within the limited sphere of his own diocese, Tertullian’s 2 ‘The Decretum Gelasianum de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris in which Tertullian’s ‘works are banned, purports to be a decretal ofthe fifth-century Pope Gelasias, but may have been forged some time later. In any case, the Decrerum Gelasianum was well established by the ninth ‘century, (Roger Pearse, Condemnation of Works,” in The Tertullian Project; available from !ngp:/ertlia.org/condemnation him; Internet; aevessed 10 October, 2002.) Roger Pearse, “Tertullian in the Renaissance: The Rediscovery of His Work in the Fifteenth Century,” in The Tertullian Project, available from htp:/tertullin.org/rediscovery.htm; Internet; accessed 10 October, 2002. Tertullian must have been known in the fifteenth century, though, for he is referred to in the Wile of Bath’s prologue as one of several misogynous aucfores in the favorite book of her fifth husband, the scholar. The text in question would have more likely been one of his treatises against marriage, rather than De virginibus velandis, which deals with a very specific third-century political issue.20 views were not collectively shared. Moreover, not once does he evoke the authority of any theologians or clergy (other than the Apostle Paul) in defense of his ideas, He does not situate hiraself within a tradition of post-biblical Christian thought, and he does not attempt to garner support for his position by addressing himself to prominent members of the Church outside of his own community. Even a cursory reading of De virginibus velandis reveals that many of his ideas about virginity and its role in the Church directly conflict with the official Catholic doctrines that would later be established. Furthermore, Tertullian did not shrink from opposing the more mainstream prelates of the Church, so even if there had been an official doctrine of virginity, he would not have considered himself constrained by it.” Yet, the modern scholars who read the text either do not realize or do not acknowledge that there is a critical disconnect between it and other well-known writings on virginity. fall this is true, what possible reason could I have for exploring De virginibus velandis? In fact, Uhave a few. For one thing, the frequent and casual use of the text needs to be scrutinized. A reading of Tertullian’s text as representative of early Christian thought enables modern scholars to come to the conclusions that feminine virginity is an impossible proposition or that the virgin must be viewed as a victim. In order to challenge these views, itis necessary to take a closer look at the text that is used to justify them and the ways in which it is cited. For the most part, ‘medievalists use Tertullian’s treatise in order to establish a current in patristic thought that the unveiling of the virgin amounts to her undoing. However, a close reading of q From the Montanist perspective, the Paraclete was continuing to guide the Church. ‘Therefore, Tertullian frequently invokes the will ofthe Holy Spirit in his cause. He cites no ‘ecclesiastical authorities other than Paul himself, declaring that “Whatever savours of opposition to ‘ruth, this will be heresy, even (if it be an) ancient custom.” (Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins,21 his text calls into question whether virginity can ever truly be anything other than veiled. Moreover, while his suggestion that the virgin may be corrupted through exposure makes her at first glance appear a fragile figure, he alone among the early Christian writers views the consecrated virgin as a formidable threat to the Church and to manhood. Therefore, his plea that virgins be obscured reveals with an explicitness found nowhere else what lies behind the symbol of the veil. Another reason to study De virginibus velandis is that Septimius Tertullianus ‘was one of the first Christian theologians to write about virginity. He penned his De virginibus velandis during the very early centuries of Christianity, in a period when ‘the Church was still forging a sense of its own identity against a backdrop of persecution and religious diversity. Virginity vowed in perpetuity for Christ was as yet a relatively novel practice and an undeveloped vocation. A virgin in the third century did not simply join a convent of sisters and lead a prescribed life, nor did parents have the option of dedicating their young daughters to the safeguarding and structure of the cloister. When a young woman decided to consecrate her virginity, there remained the question of what should happen next, particularly in regards to her dealings with the greater community. During the first four centuries of the Church, debates over the ideal lifestyle and suitable dress of a virgin sparked discussion about the nature of sacerdotal virginity itself. (Sadly, it does not appear to have happened the other way around.) There were also unresolved questions about the classification of females who, although at the age of consent (i.e. pubescent or fully mature), were not wives, widows, or even marriageable, and who would not bear children. This trans, Rev. S. Thelwall, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson {New ‘York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899], vol. 4, The Fathers of the Third Century, 1.2.)2 situation was particularly problematic since Biblical writings had not anticipated the development of a class of voluntarily single women. When Tertullian was writing De virginibus velandis, the concept of virginity as a type of religious devotion was much more in flux than in the Nicene and post-Nicene periods. Each Christian community was independently crystallizing its own customs and determining its official stance concerning dedicated virgins, (2.1-3.3) ‘That Tertullian wrote on the virgin vocation in its infancy makes him valuable for engaging with the vast array of notions about virginity at play before such a time as the figure of the virgin became emblematic within the Church. What makes him truly interesting is that he was swimming against the tide by calling into question the very validity of a privileged vocation for female virgins. His treatise and the other texts on virginity from the third and fourth centuries show that other clergy were positing an exceptional relationship between God and the girls who would vow their lives to His service, permanently forsaking marriage and sexual intercourse. Because of this unique bond, the consecrated virgins would have a special place in the Church. community, enjoying social, ceremonial, and even financial privileges. They would not be treated like the other women whose gender naturally inclined them to Juxuriousness and whose status as wives and mothers obligated them to serve their husbands and families. Rather, the dedicated virgins would be a class apart, differentiated by their super-womanly purity and devotion to God alone. Tertullian, more than any other Christian writer, saw and exposed these ideas for what they were: a threat to masculine privilege. Although he himself was a practitioner and strong proponent of sexual abstinence, he saw the exceptional status2B ‘granted to young female virgins as having grave consequences for the gendered hierarchy of the Church's organization, and he perceived that even the conceptualization of feminine virginity challenged the accepted notion of masculine moral superiority. De virginibus velandis is thus less an articulation of perpetual feminine virginity as a religious vocation than an attack against it, In his arsenal of arguments, Tertullian uses the term “virgin” in a variety of (at times contradictory) senses. For the most part, he persists with pre-Christian concepts of the virgin, but at times, he anticipates some of the more common themes of later writing on virginity. Although stemming from a stridently misogynous position, his objections to the establishment of a prominent virginal vocation for women do in fact articulate problems that would persist in theological, ecclesiastical, and hagiographical treatments of feminine sanctity — problems that the proponents of the virgin vocation did not always anticipate or recognize. The title De virginibus velandis literally means “Of Virgins Needing-To-Be- Covered,” but is more often rendered “On the Veiling of Virgins.” If Tertullian is to be believed, in the controversy that spurred the tract, a certain faction of the church of Carthage held that the young women who had vowed their virginity in perpetuity should enjoy certain privileges denied married women, including worshipping unveiled.* Tertullian’s text attacks each of their arguments in turn, endeavoring to prove that the veiling of virgins is in accordance with Scripture, nature, and discipline. Thus, his motivation for writing is not to present a coherent idea of Of course, since there are no extant writings presenting the views of the we are forced to accept Tertullian’s representations oftheir arguments as tue. Furthermore, it is not entirely clear exactly how the virgins functioned in the Carthaginian community at that time or precisely which privileges were afforded them other than that they worshipped unveiled, satin the24 feminine virginity, and in fact, he does not. At various times, the virgin appears as a little girl, an unmarried adolescent, a man, a paragon of modesty, a brazen exhibitionist, a bride of Christ, and an ambiguous monster. However, what is really at stake is whether the virgin may be classed as a woman, and whether she is subject to the laws that regulate that class. This is because for both Tertullian and his ‘opponents the veil is not a signifier of virginity, but of womanhood, Therefore, those who claim that virgins do not have to veil are essentially saying that female virgins somehow exempt themselves from the class of “woman.” Tertullian insists that virginity does not make a female an exception to her gender, and that the virgin must therefore bear the external mark of womanhood, namely the veil. The idea of the veil as marker of womanhood is explicated by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians: But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of ‘a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Any man who prays or prophecies with his head covered dishonors his head, but any woman who prays or prophecies with her head unveiled dishonors her head — it is the same as iffher head were shaven. For if'a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shor or shaven, let her wear a veil. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man, (For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for ‘woman, but woman for man.) That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels.” In this passage, Paul derives the injunction to veil women from the existence of the woman’s natural “veil,” her hair, and from his assumption that a woman would section reserved for widows, had some sort of economic relationship with the Church, and were enerally put on a pedestal ¥ Corinthians 11.5-10.25 naturally feel disgraced were she shorn of her hair.’° It is a sign of her gender, insofar as it differentiates her from and marks her submission to man, That submission is founded in part on woman's derivation from man, which prevents her from tracing her origin directly to God and precludes her claiming to be a reflection of God's image. According to Paul, only man may claim to reflect God, and he alone must pray uncovered in order to fulfill this task of reflection. For a woman to wear the veil ‘means that she acknowledges that she is not a man, and that she is therefore not in the image of God. She accepts that she is, rather, a longhaired derivative of man — his glory, but also his subject Both Tertullian and his opponents follow Paul in seeing the veil as an external mark of womanhood, but if the veil is a mark, then so is its absence. Tertullian insists that the consecrated virgins of the church of Carthage are themselves women, and thus should veil, just as married and widowed females do. He does not want to see them marked as not-women by the very absence of the veil. In contrast to his, ‘opponents’ claims that the virgin, in refusing the womanly roles of wife and mother, is not subject to the laws governing women, he insists that she does not have an exceptional status, that she merely constitutes another subcategory of Woman. This is because, if wearing a veil is a sign of feminine submission, then not wearing a veil isa sign of masculine privilege. The objective of De virginibus velandis is therefore not to develop the idea of virginity as a virtue or a vocation, but to prevent its being marked on the female body, and thereby to prevent the female virgin from being privileged. In the process of opposing virginal privilege, he will move from rather © Of course, if the woman's long, atractive hair is a veil, then one must ask why it must be covered by a literal veil. This is evidence that a veil may not conceal, so much as mark the one who26 conservative, pre-Christian understandings of virginity to extremely radical articulations of what it is to be a sacerdotal virgin, Tertullian insists that “virgin,” like “wife” and “widow” is only a special category of the general term “woman.” (4.5) In order to prove that this is so, he considers the two feminine archetypes, Eve and Mary. Eve is the prototype and negative paradigm of femininity. Whatever may be said of Eve in essence applies to -womankind as a whole, Mary provides the model of feminine virtue. Her life and behavior serves as the blueprint for all women who seek to achieve holiness. For both Eve and Mary, virginity and motherhood are significant. Eve, by losing her purity through pride, forfeited her virginity, and doomed every woman thereafier to the necessity of reproduction through submission to man (i.e. marriage) and painful, dangerous maternity. Mary, by retaining her purity through humility, was the first and only woman to conceive without the loss of virginity. Sinful Eve and blessed Mary are in many ways opposites, but Tertullian stresses the critical feature they share in common despite their very different sexual histories: they are both women. ‘Moreover, he claims that they were both considered women even at points in their lives when they had never had sex. He starts with the very beginning of both feminine virginity and womanhood. Eve, he reminds us, was named woman by ‘Adam before the Fall; ic. while she was still a virgin. After firmly establishing this point, he moves on to Mary, who was a virgin when the archangel Gabriel announced to her that she would bear the Christ child, addressing her as “blessed among women.”"! Tertullian anticipates that his opponents will claim that Mary was so. wears it. oe che 128)2 called because she was betrothed, already promised in marriage to Joseph. He points out that Christ was nevertheless conceived by a virgin, (6.3-4) The eritical supposition raised in the hypothetical objection is that a girl, once betrothed, is not truly a virgin, because she intends to marry. In promising to marry, she in essence offers her subjection to a man, her future husband, to whom she fully intends to surrender her body at the proper time. ‘Tertullian’s opponents would likely argue that the virgins of Carthage, by contrast, intend to remain celibate throughout the remainder of their lives, and therefore have not subjected themselves to any man, Tertullian does not address the question of whether Mary remained a virgin perpetually as these young women were planning to do, nor does he even discuss whether such was her intent.'? Rather, he indicates that in this context, virginity is contingent on simple sexual inexperience, and not marital status or personal intention. Here, already, are several conceptions of the virgin that would retain their importance in the literature on virginity: the virgin as woman, the virgin as one who has never had sexual intercourse, the virgin as a figure for prelapsarian Eve, and the virgin as Mary. Concerning Paul’s commandment, only the first point is significant for ‘Tertullian. A skillful rhetor, he does not digress from his argument in order to discuss, compare, or relate the virginity of Mary and Eve, nor does he here examine the technicalities of sexual purity, as later writers will do, He simply asserts that if Eve and Mary were called women while still virgins, then by extension any sexually inexperienced female also falls into the category of “woman.” In fact, Tertullian rejected the idea that Mary remained a virgin in partu. In other words, he believed that her virginity was violated when she gave birth to Jesus, although other patristic writers ‘maintained that she gave birth miraculously without breaching the vagina. (Bugge, 145-146.) The28 In the discussions of Eve and Mary, one may discern two common features that make them particularly apt examples to support Tertullian’s line of reasoning; both are referred to as women at a point in time when they have not had sex, and both are also soon to be married, From this perspective, the categories of women - virgin, wife, and widow ~ refer primarily to temporary marital statuses among females at the age of consent. For instance, the creation of Eve is invoked in Paul’s statements, “For ‘man was not made from woman, but woman from man, Neither was man created for ‘woman, but woman for man.” As Tertullian points out, the woman made from and for man was a virgin, even though, submitting to the dominion of Adam, she would soon go on to be the mother of mankind. In the ancient world, the term virgin primarily indicated a maiden who had not yet married (and presumably had no sexual experience)."® This is precisely the sense in which Tertullian understands seriptural virgins, as those who are virgins for the moment. For example, he maintains that virgins are the cause of Paul’s warning, “That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels.” In Genesis 6.1-4, it is told that the sons of God became attracted to and married the daughters of men, engendering a race of giants. ‘Tertullian reasons that these women must have been virgins, since they are referred to in Scripture as daughters rather than wives of men, and in any case, “who can presume that it was bodies already defiled, and relics of human lust, which such ‘Catholic dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary was not made official until the Fifth Ecumenical ‘Council of $53. (Bugge, 142.) Peter Brown discusses the tremendous pressure on young people to marry and reproduce in the Roman Empire. Even the famous Vestal Virgins, were sometimes allowed to marry later in life However, as a rule, girls married in early adolescence. (Brown, 6-9.) Tertullian also indicates that in his time, pagan girls were given in marriage at the onset of puberty, ie. around age twelve. (11.8) In ‘act, Gillian Cloke demonstrates that although a Roman law forbade marriages of girls under twelve, this fex imperfecta (a law lacking a penalty for its breech) was frequently ignored in order to assure the2» angels yearned after, so as not rather to have been inflamed for virgins, whose bloom pleads an excuse for human lust likewise?""* It is this unconcealed, maidenly bloom. that brought peril to the very angels and occasioned the ravishment of the unsuspecting daughters of men, These, then, are temporary virgins. In fact, all of the biblical exemplars of virginity referred to in De Virginibus velandis ~ Eve, Mary, Rebecea, the daughters of men, and even Adam — go on to marry and become famous parents, Obviously, the narrow coneept of the virgin as pre-married woman fits awkwardly in the context of the Carthaginian controversy, since the virgins of that ‘community had taken sacred vows never to marry. Whether for the sake of argument, or for deeper political reasons, Tertullian is reluctant to acknowledge a class of virgins who, unlike the biblical women above, are not destined to accept the dominion of a husband. Later Christian writers on virgi ity uniformly understand it as involving a glorious rejection of marriage and sexual intercourse in perpetuity, Tertullian’s contemporary adversaries seem to be working from the same premise. He, on the other hand, fails to recognize the revolutionary innovation of perpetual and voluntary virginity, and does not anticipate the significant function it will come to serve as a mode of feminine piety Because she is not yet married, Tertullian’s virgin sometimes comes across as an immature form of woman. Even on the most banal level of sheer usefulness to the Church, virgins, we are told, do not hold a candle to the proven years and capabilities purity and submissiveness of the bride. (Gillian Cloke, “This Female Man of God": Women and Spiritual Power inthe Patristic Age, AD 330-450 (London: Routledge, 1995}, 47-52.) 7 “...quis praesumere potest quales angelos maculata jam corpora et humanae libidinis reliquias desiderasse, ut non ad virgines potius exarserint, quarum flos etiam humanam libidinem excusat?”30 of widows and wives, (9.4) His outraged description of a teenaged virgin inappropriately sitting in the section of the church reserved for enrolled widows (who had to be at least sixty years of age) suggests that the practice of sacerdotal virginity had begun relatively recently in Carthage, so that all who professed it were still quite young. Be that as it may, they were not so young as to be considered children. This is an important distinction for Tertullian, who takes pains to differentiate between the childhood stage of virginity (into which all girls are bom) and the adolescent state of virginity (in which, to his chagrin, quite a few maidens of his community were lingering, either out of choice, or because no marriage had yet been arranged for them). Employing procatalepsis, as he so often does, Tertullian explains why infants and little girls do not have to be veiled, as virginal young women do. Girl children differ from the unveiled virgins of the Carthaginian church in two fundamental ways. In the first place, they have no sense of their own sexuality or femininity. Adam and Eve, he argues, went about the Garden of Eden blissfully unconscious of their nakedness, but once made aware, covered themselves through shame, So too, little girls may go about unveiled in their innocence, but once they begin to understand themselves as potential sexual partners and objects of a masculine gaze, they should be covered. (11.2) He demonstrates that the dedicated virgins of Carthage had reached such an understanding, since they were weating cosmetics, mature hairstyles, and flattering clothing, and attending carefully to their hygiene, as well. (12.2) The second difference between the consecrated virgins and little girls is biology; the (The Latin citation is from Tertulian, De virginibus velandis, trans. and ed. Christoph Stucklin [Bern: ‘Herbert Lang & Cie, 1974], 76)3M prepubescent girl is unripe for motherhood, and thus unripe for marriage. Marriage not being an option for her, the little girl stands as the true virgin in Tertullian’s text. Itis in this context that one must understand a frequently quoted statement from De Virginibus velandis: “Fos a virgin ceases to be a virgin from the time that it ‘becomes possible for her not to be one.” (11.3) When cited in relation to Tertullian’s contention that exposure compromises virginity (discussed below), he seems to be saying that any virgin who is seen, heard, or described, ceases forthwith to exist as a ‘virgin, because she has become a potential object of desire.'* However, taken in context, the above statement does not foreclose the possibility of virginity, but rather severely limits the definition of the word “virgin”. The sentences that immediately follow make it clear that Tertullian has in mind a specific, non-ecclesiastic use of the term: Fora virgin ceases to be a virgin from the time that it becomes possible for her not to be one, And accordingly, among Israel, itis unlawful to deliver one to a husband except afier the attestation by blood of her maturity; thus before this indication, the nature is unripe. Therefore if she is a virgin so long as she is unripe, she ceases to be a virgin when she is perceived to be ripe; and as not-virgin, is now subject to the law, just as she is to marriage. In the fourth chapter of Medieval Misogyny, “The Poetics of Virginity,” Howard Bloch quotes the provocative sentence which begins this passage no less than three Bloch, 101, 104, and 108; Kelly, 67; and Melnemney, 60 all cite the sentence inthis way “Ex illo enim virgo desinit ex quo potest non esse. Et ideo penes Israel illicitum est ad virum tradere nisi post contestatam sanguine maturitatemy; ta ante hunc indicem acerba res est. Tgtur si tam diu virgo quamdiu scerba est, desinitvirginem cum matura cognoscitur et ut non virgo iam legi applicatur sicut et muptis.” (11.3) The adjective “acerbus,” has a host of related meanings, such as “coarse,” “severe,” “arievous,” and “bitter,” and because immature fruit is hard and harsh tothe taste, italso came to mean “unripe.” (A Latin Dictionary, eds. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short {Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879], sv. “acerbus.") Thus, the inl who is perceived to be “acerba” is not simply unready; she is as yet too rough to accept marital subjection and is thus intolerable for the man ‘who would partake of her too soon. By extension, a young Woman perceived to be “matura” is prepared to enter feminine adulthood, Because she is sweet, mellow, and pliant. That the attestation of blood is supposed to indicate a softening in the female raises interesting questions about Tertllian's Lnderstanding of a woman's physiological development.32 times, not once revealing the context from which it is taken, namely that Time and Nature bring an end to virginity. Omitting the concept of virginity as dependent on age and lumping Tertullian in with other patristic writers, Bloch implies that he is speaking of sacerdotal virginity, as the concept would later develop. He makes it sscem that the third-century author is denying the viability of sustaining the spiritual purity on which later concepts of Christian virginity would come to depend." In fact, Tertullian’s assessment is rather more absolute. It is not that consecrated virginity cannot last; it simply cannot be. Virginity does exist, but only as a childhood phase, not as a life’s vocation or a sacred offering of oneself. A marriageable girl cannot, dedicate her virginity to God, because being ripe, she is already not-virgin. A preadolescent gir! cannot consecrate her virginity, because as a true virgin, she has no concept of her own sexuality. Sinee she does not perceive herself as a potential sexual object, she has no reason to accept or refuse this role, and it has never even occurred to her that her life lacks sexual activity. Therefore, she cannot even conceive of her own virginity. At any rate, even if she were to consecrate her virginity in perpetuity, she could not accomplish such a vow, because her virginity will reach its term as soon as she is perceived to be ripe ‘The question remains: the virgin ceases to be so when she is perceived to be ripe by whom? In De virginibus velandis, Tertullian evades this question by making the perception of maturity universally evident. When nature dictates that the time has come, menstruation will begin, the girl will commence dressing and comporting herself as a woman, and men will see her as a sexual object, all (apparently) simultaneously. At that time, the Christian parents should respect the dictates of 7 Bloch, 101, 104, and 108,3 nature and give the girl in marriage, as the pagans do, and in accordance with Jewish Jaw. Tertullian regrets that parents, through poverty or procrastination, may fail to do 50, (11.5) Still, he never admits the possibility that in fact, the girl may develop at differing emotional and physical rates; that is, that she may be innocent of her sexuality even after experiencing her first period, or else that she may have a precocious sense of her own femininity. Moreover, in keeping with the misogynist notion of feminine complicity with masculine desire, he does not consider that a girl may be seen as a sexual object long before she considers herself in this way. No, for Tertullian, the girl matures all at once. Biologically, she reaches puberty and menstruation begins, Emotionally, she understands that her femininity enables her to attract and influence men. She begins to desire them and makes herself alluring in the hopes that she will be desired by them. Socially, those who see her (parents, the community, and interested men) begin to view her as a potential wife, mother, and/or sexual partner. Each of these developments takes place at precisely the same time. Therefore, a maiden who knows herself to be a woman “in conscience and in flesh” ~ and for Tertullian one absolutely implies the other -, becomes jpso facto subject to the laws governing women, regardless of whether she is an actual object of marriage or desire, simply because she could be. (12.1) Conversely, the true virgin is at once biologically prepubescent and emotionally preadolescent, but she is also socially immature, since she can neither imagine herself in a sexual/marital relationship, nor be soem 1 joned by anyone else at all.'* Clearly, Tertullian does not regard the * Presumably, she would also not have experienced molestation or rape in her infancy or early childhood. Tertullian never mentions either of these possibilities, which would have placed into ‘question his contention thatthe sexual objectification of a girl coincides with her physical and ‘emotional maturation,34 sacerdotal virgins of Carthage as true virgins, because strictly speaking, one cannot simultaneously be a virgin and know oneself to be a virgin, Thus, through much of De Virginibus velandis, Tertullian adheres to a concept of virginity as nothing more than an early and natural stage of feminine life in order to discredit the idea of the perpetual virgin as a natural impossibility. Otherwise, he would be forced to consider the prospect that in the Christian era there exists a new kind of woman, independent of man and freed from the constraints inherent in the Creation and the Fall: namely that she be subjected to man’s dominion, that she bring forth children in pain, and that she wear a veil as a sign of her derivation from and consequent submission to man. Such a possibility is precisely what Tertullian wishes to nullify. Thus, he argues that “If ‘the man is head of the woman,’ of course (he is) of the virgin too, from whom comes the woman who has married: unless the virgin is a third generic class, some monstrosity with a head of its own.”"” The first half of this statement is mockingly cryptic, since a woman who has married may proceed from a virgin, only when the virgin has ceased to be so. ‘The man is thus the head of a ‘woman who takes the place of her virgin self, and yet, he is also said to be the head of the virgin who no longer exists. In order for this to be a logical proposition, one must understand all the terms as general, which the lack of articles in the Latin permits: ‘Man — not a particular man or husband — is the head of Woman in all the inevitable stages of her life, and therefore is the head of all virgins. In the above statement, Tertullian employs a peculiar combination of verb tenses; the woman who has married (nupsit — perfect tense) is made (fit — present tense) from the virgin. It would % “Si caput mulieris vir est, utique et virginis, de qua fit mulier ila quae nupsit, nisi si virgo tertium genus est monstruosum aliquod sui capitis.” (72)35 make more sense to say that the married woman is made from the virgin (using the past participle nupta rather than the active verb nupsit) or that virgins become married women. Instead, Tertullian presents marriage as a fait accompli, because he forces the reader to consider woman from the perspective of the already wed non-virgin, constantly generated in the present from her past virgin self. For woman, marriage is therefore not a choice; itis an inevitability. By positing a fundamental continuity between the virgin and the married woman, Tertullian is able to assert man as the head of both, hence reinforcing the obligation that a virgin cover her head in token of her subjugation to man. Indeed, having subsumed the virgin into the category of Woman, Tertullian has allowed only a single pair of alternatives: Bither one is a man, with Christ for a head, who dishonors his head by covering it, or one is a woman, with a husband for a head, who dishonors her head by unveiling it. These are, in fact, the only terms Paul makes available in the First Corinthians passage.”” This is why Tertullian can only envision the permanently unmarried woman as a monstrosity. If her head is not her husband, who can it be? Tertullian refuses to entertain the idea that her head could be Christ, for according to the terms set down by Paul, that would make hera man. By contrast, his famous student Cyprian, would later embrace the option that the master does not dare to consider; that a virgin could function as a man in this scenario. Since she has freed herself from the two curses God placed on all women starting with Eve (that they would experience birthing pains and that they would be subject to their % Although it should be noted that in 1 Corinthians 7.34-35, 39-40, Paul explicitly encourages single girls and widows to remain unmarried, ifthey are able, since “the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs ofthe Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is, anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband.”36 husbands), Cyprian informs the virgin, “... your Lord and Head is Christ, after the likeness and in the place of the man; with that of men your lot and your condition is equal.”*' However, if a virgin may have Christ as her head after the likeness of man, this implies that, equaling man, she shares the likeness of God. This possibility that virgins may equal men in their reflection of the imago Dei is precisely what Tertullian wishes above all to avoid, So long as there is a strictly binary understanding of gender, there is no question that man is placed above woman in glory and in his resemblance to God. Despite his insistence that all ‘gins are women, Tertullian’s logie seems to have a need that no females diverge from the complete cursus vivendi of the archetypical ‘woman, because he wants to be sure that there are no exceptions, In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler provides a “rough sketch of gender” as theorized by Simone de Beauvoir, Monique Wit and Michel Foucault, reflecting repeatedly on the grammatical and political organization of sex (the biological, prediscursive division into male and female), gender (the understanding of oneself as “man” or “woman”), and desire (for a mate or sexual partner) into a strictly binary structure, She notes: ..-One is one’s gender to the extent that one is not the other gender, a formulation that presupposes and enforces the restriction of gender within that binary pair. Gender can denote a unity of experience, of sex, gender, and desire, only when sex can be understood in some sense to necessitate gender ~ where gender is a psychic and/or cultural designation of the self ~ and desire ~ where desire is heterosexual and therefore differentiates itself through an oppositional relation to that other gender it desires,” 2 Cyprian, On the Dress of Virgins, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Alexander Roberts and James ‘Donaldson (New York: Charles Seribner’s Sons, 1899), vol. 5, The Fathers of the Third Century, pat. 2 2” judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 22.3 For Tertullian, there must be a perfect coincidence between the virgin’s sex and her ‘gender, her biological femaleness and her womanhood. This is why he insists that virgins, wives, and widows are all women. In addition, as female and woman, the virgin must participate in feminine desire. That is, she must look to man as a sexual and marital partner. By the Pauline terms, this means that the virgin must accept the man as her head. Under no circumstances may the anatomically female virgin assume the gender of a man; she cannot take Christ as her head. In order to assure that this is so, her desire must be for man, which is to say that she must marry. Under the polar organization distinguishing the male/man/husband from the femaleswoman/wife, marriage is the essential and inevitable guarantor of the unity of biological sex and cultural gender. In this binary system, perpetual virginity is simply unthinkable, because if the woman cannot have Christ as her head and rejects man as, her head, then the only remaining element that could serve as her head is herself. This would result in a creature truly belonging to a third class, a “monstrosity” that Tertullian refuses to conceptualize with any seriousness, but which he seems to deeply fear. Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, He who is able to receive this, let him receive it, Matthew 19.12 Tertullian devotes so much of De virginibus velandis to proving that virgins are women, that it is somewhat surprising when, shifting from a strictly feminine38 paradigm, he makes a few observations on the relationship of virginity to the ‘masculine, a move that does not always take place in theological texts of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.” In fact, this startling shift is a necessary maneuver. Ifa virgin does not veil, she is marking herself as the equal of man, but her natural veil of hair will reveal that she achieved that position through her own ageney rather than through her birth. As a result, she may even appear to surpass man in virtue Even if one were to accept that all female virgins are women and therefore should neither go about unveiled nor place themselves on a par with men generally speaking, the idea that the morally inferior beings are capable of absolute bodily integrity ‘means that individual women may outstrip individual men in their devotions. One might even go so far as to say that the virgin woman, pure and self-controlled, is more in God’s image than the average man, Tertullian blocks this sort of unfavorable comparison by comparing only the cream of each crop, the sexually abstinent woman with the sexually abstinent man, At least, there is a pretension that equivalent terms are being compared. In order to create the illusion of symmetry, Tertullian briefly maintains a discussion of male virgins. This is linguistically and conceptually difficult to pull off, however, since in the binary distribution of gendered traits, men are generally not depicted as virginal, Actually, while the type of sexual abstinence most associated with women is virginity, in De virginibus velandis and in most other writings on Christian Kathleen Coyne Kelly states that it is highly unusual that he brings up masculine virginity at all. (Kelly, 91), In fact, masculine virginity is also addressed in Jerome’s Adversus Joviniamum, John ‘Chiysostom's De vrginitare, and Gregory of Nyssa's De virginitate, but only this last author attempts to develop a way of conceiving virginity in a masculine mode (viz. the virgin man as spouse of Sophia, the feminine figure of Divine Wisdom). Conversely, Jerome's Ad Eusfochium, Ambrose’s De virginibus, and Augustine's De sancta virgintate, the first two of which were addressed to women, discuss virginity asa strictly feminine attribute and vocation39 sexuality, the abstinence associated with men is continence or cel cy. Like sacerdotal virginity, continence is a voluntary commitment to keep the body inviolate and the mind chaste, Yet the celibate, unlike the virgin, may have been sexually active prior to taking his vow. This breach in purity notwithstanding, Tertullian has a strong interest in positing the superiority of continence over virginity, the masculine over the feminine, Therefore, he quickly moves from the female virgin to the male virgin to the male celibate, so that one could almost overlook that man falters in the position of the virgin. In the end, it is the female virgin and the male celibate who are direetly compared, to the detriment of the virgin, of course Virginity in males usually escapes representation, especially in hagiographical accounts of male saints, and this lacuna factors into the current scholarship on virginity, as well." In vernacular hagiography, it can be difficult to focus on virginity in men, because lives of female saints have been disproportionately edited since the very beginnings of medievalism, and thus, there are relatively few masculine legends available for study. Still, taking the handful of accessible Old French lives together with the hundreds of Latin lives that have been published, itis safe to note that male saints are generally not labeled as virgins, although in many cases, the vitae suggest that they never had sex.> Even though continence is a major theme in masculine % As Kelly has pointed out, during the recent spike in hagiographical studies by feminist scholars, “Female saints’ lives have gamered the most attention by far, while male saints’ lives have been relatively neglected, making it risky to generalize about hagiography based on gender alone.” (04-95) This undoubtedly contributes to the fact that she and John Bugge are the only modem schotars T have come across who conduct a sustained examination of masculine Virginity. See her fourth chapter, “Oxymoronie Bodies: Male Virgins in Hagiography and Romance” in Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages which previously appeared as “Menaced Masculinity and Imperited Virginity in Malory’s Morte Darthur” in Menacing Virgins (97-114). In Bugge’s Virginita, especially see his fourth chapter, “Virginity Sexualized ‘A significant exception may be found in Aldhelm’s seventh-century verse treatise entitled De ‘irwintare, in which he dedicates a large section to the hagiography of male virgins: six from the Old ‘Testament, four from the New, and twenty-three from early Christianity. In a few of the lives, the40 lives, and the thwarted seduction of male saints is a well-tocumented motif,** holy ‘men do not announce to their seducers, as female saints do, that they are virgins and have dedicated their virginity to Christ. In fact, one must usually infer from their Jegends that men are virgins, looking for clues such as a supernaturally saintly disposition in youth or lifelong residence among holy men. For example, in an early Latin life of St. Martin, we are told that “from almost the earliest years of his hallowed childhood, this remarkable boy aspired to the service of God,” and that when the teenaged Martin was forced to join the military, he “kept himself free from the vices in which men in that position are apt to indulge.””” These details, combined. with his subsequent entrance into the service of God and the lack of a recorded sexual encounter, allow the reader to suppose that he remained a virgin This admittedly vague indication of purity typifies the extent to which virginity in men remains obstinately unwritten. It also falls in line with a Christic model of virginity. Christian authors often call attention to Christ's virginity, referring to Him as a Virgin born of a Virgin.* Yet the virginity of Jesus, never explicitly attested in Seripture, can only be assumed, unlike the unambiguous virgin virginity ofthe man is made explicit and significant through a seduction or betrothal narative. But in mast cases, the virginity ofthese men seems circumstantial and unrelated to the works they achieve. * Donald Weinstein and Rudolph M. Bell, Saints and Society (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 81-84 and Kelly, 94-100. Most cases involve a holy man being forcibly exposed to the seductive wiles ofa harlot, or even a bevy of beautiful women. Mark Jordan and Kathleen Coyne Kelly also discuss the attempted homosexual seduction of St. Pelagius, a Spanish martyr whose ‘pass uncanny resembles the lives of female virgins. (Mark D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology {Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997], 10-28 and Kelly, 101-104.) 2 ‘Sulpicius Severus, The Life of Saint Martin of Tours, trans. FR. Hoare, in Soldiers of Chris: Saints and Saimts'Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middte Ages, eds. Thomas F-X. Noble and ‘Thomas Head (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania Stale University Press, 1995), 6 2 “Certainly, the principal tezching and example of virginal integrity is to be observed in Christ, Himselt” (Augustine, Holy Virginity, chap. 35.)4 state of Mary.”* In general, there is a tendency to use Christ as the model for masculine sanctity and Mary as the archetype of the holy woman. So, for example, in astudy of writings about Claire of Assisi and her contemporary and spiritual father Francis of Assisi, Catherine Mooney demonstrates that St. Francis tended to be associated with Christ, while St. Claire, who considered herself in imitatio Christ, ‘was portrayed in imitatio Mariae.” Likewise, whether consciously or not, it seems that virginity in male saints’ lives is made to imitate a Christic model of non- expression. Unstated, sexual purity must be inferred from the marital status and the understood holiness of the male figure in question. ‘The resistance to plainly Jabeling holy men as virgins also has a grammatical basis. Whereas female saints are explicitly labeled as virgins from the “incipit” to the concluding “amen,” there is a linguistic tension about applying the feminine noun virgo (Old French: virgine or virge) to a male saint. Thus, Kathleen Coyne Kelly notes that when referring to male virgins, Tertullian is forced to employ awkward or periphrastic formulae, in much the same way that one might refer to a “male nurse.”*" At times he uses terms such as pueri, “boys”, and masculi investis, meaning ‘unmarried men (lit. “unclothed men”, indicating perhaps those who have not yet assumed manly attire). The word “investis” could also be used to indicate a beardless young man.” The element of youthfulness is significant, since that would make the investis the analogue in immaturity of the virgo; that is to say, not so much a celibate ® That is, unambiguous atthe time of Christ’s conception. The belief in the perpetual virginity ‘of Mary would remain a topic of debate until the sixth century. % "Catherine M. Mooney, “Imitatio Christi or Imitatio Mariae? Claire of Assisi and Her Interpreters,” in Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters, ed. Catherine M. Mooney (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 52-77. 5 Kelly, 91-92. A Latin Dictionary, .v. “investi.”2 asa teenager. Of course, an unmarried investis was not necessarily virginal in the sexual sense. In addition to these grammatically masculine terms, Tertullian attempts to qualify the feminine word in such a way as to signify a man, referring to the one “qui inter viros virgo est” (“who among men is a virgin,” 8.4), and when he must make the element of sexual renunciation clear, to “viri... tot virgines, tot spadones voluntarii.” (10.1) This last formula, “so many men virgins, so many voluntary ‘eunuchs,” reveals the linguistic awkwardness of referring to men as virgins. Because the phrase viri virginali or “virginal men” could be misread as “girlish men,” Tertullian must style them “men virgins,” using a double substantive, and then immediately rename them in a masculine mode, as eunuchs. The voluntary eunuch frequently appears in spiritual and monastic writing, but of course, since sexual intercourse may have taken place prior to any actual or metaphorical castration, the figure fails to encompass the total and originary purity entailed in virginity. Tertullian’s circumlocution points to the inadequacy of each of the terms to name a man who has never had sex. Ironically, the word “virgin”, applied in so many ways in De virginibus velandis, seems inadequate, or indeed overdetermined, when employed outside the feminine sphere. Nevertheless, it serves Tertullian’s argument to bring masculine virginity into play, because it allows him to use the logic of symmetry. He reinforces his previous % Kelly also examines this phrase, relying heavily on Thelwall’s translation, but I disagree with ‘her assessment that “virgines” could be either masculine or feminine plural, so that it was necessary to ‘add “vir”. “Virgo” is simply feminine, whether in its singular or plural forms. Its declension would ‘not have been the source of confusion, so much as the unusual application of this word, which is not ‘nly grammatically feminine, but also feminine in concept, toa masculine igure. ‘Nevertheless, both the voluntary eunuch and the consecrated virgin perform a sacrificial act of {ree will enabled by grace. The idea of the voluntary eunuch originated in Christ’s counsel, “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men,B assertions that “virgin” is a category of “woman”, by reminding the reader that unmarried youths, like prelapsarian Adam, fall under the heading of “man”. If, as the anti-veiling faction claims, a virgin is not a woman and therefore need not veil, then it is licit for the person who has never had sex to assume the mark of the gender that, stands in opposition to his or her biological category. If such is the ease, then by that same logic, inexperienced bachelors should wear the veil, the sign of womanhood, and only men who have been sexually active should bare their heads, in token of their uncontested manhood (i.e. their dominance over a woman): “If a virgin is not a ‘woman, neither is a stripling a man. Ifthe virgin is not covered on the plea that she is not a woman, let the stripling be covered on the plea that he is not aman, Let identity of virginity share equality of indulgence.”** Tertullian’s insistence on symmetry forcefully supports his argument that virgins must be veiled. Virginal females permitted to bare their heads display a sign ‘of masculinity. By the logic of symmetry, this means that virginal males must mirror the gesture of gender transgression, veiling themselves in order to bear the sign of femininity, Of course, it isa facetious line of reasoning, since hierarchy, and not symmetry, characterizes the relationship between men and women. The hierarchy that Tertullian pretends to ignore makes the prospect of assuming the visible sign of ‘womanhood unacceptable to the men of his community, since this would betoken a downgrade in status. Because church doctrine and practice assures men of their superiority over women, for a man to cross dress would be deemed not only nd there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He ‘who is abe to receive this let him receive i.” (Mathew 19.12) ™Si virgo mulier non et, nec vr investi est, Si non opertur virgo, quia mulier aon sit, ‘operiatur investis, quia vir non sit. Eiusdem virginitatis aequa sit venia.” (8.4)“4 ‘unnatural, but absolutely disgraceful. No Christian man of Carthage would be willing to wear a veil, and no member of the church would find such a gesture acceptable, as Tertullian well knows. It is an absurd suggestion, especially since any “voluntary ‘would likely have a somber and conservative character. Yet, since the binary structure of gender implies that the sexes must operate in parallel fashion, if a ‘woman, through virginity, constitutes an exception to her sex and becomes like a ‘man, then a man, through virginity, becomes like a woman. The price of marking a female virgin with a sign of masculinity is therefore the feminization of the male virgin. With consecrated virgins having established that virginity is marked by crossing the gender line, virginal men have no choice but to refuse any visible marker of their virgi . concealing it altogether rather than adopting a gender reversal that could only bring them shame, However, since Tertullian insists on the notion of symmetry between the sexes, if men reject any outward sign of their virginity, women ‘must, as well. In short either both groups should display the sign of the opposite gender, or they should both refuse such a display. Here again, the unspoken hierarchical relationship between the sexes serves Tertullian’s argument, for in determining which of the two courses must be universally adopted, the right must be on the side of the one “who among men is a virgin.” ‘Yet masculine virginity is not a theme that Tertullian is able to sustain, and he does not examine the figure of the male virgin in depth. Moreover, male virgins are considered in a strictly parallel relationship to female virgins in his line of reasoning, and so, the differences between the types of virginity in each gender are not explored.Rather, Tertullian almost immediately moves from the idea of masculine virginity to a discussion of continence, placing men firmly on masculine ground, and enabling him to affirm the superiority of manly celibacy over womanly virginity. Although he does not explicitly label each type of abstinence according to gender, the substitution of continence for virginity in regards to males has the effect of associating celibacy with the masculine and virginity with the feminine, resulting in an analogy that continues to resonate even in the present day. In the misogynist tradition, women are generally viewed as especially given to fleshly desire, yet this notoriously misogynous writer does not hesitate to claim that any sort of masculine abstinence is more praiseworthy than feminine virginity, averring that men are in fact more ardent towards the opposite sex: “The more their sex is eager and warm towards females, so much the more toil does the continence of (this) greater ardour involve." Furthermore, for Tertullian, that type of abstinence associated with masculinity is more to be admired, “For is not continence withal superior to virginity, whether it be the continence of the widowed, or of those who by consent, have already renounced the common disgrace (which matrimony involves)? For constancy of virginity is maintained by grace; of continence, by virtue.”*” Tertullian’s use of _gratia and virtus here is not exactly in line with what would become the Church's official doctrine on virginity, or its understanding of continence for that matter. In the works of authorities from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas to Thomas & Kempis to Pius XII, both virginity and continence are virtues requiring a resolve of will and a G quorum quanto sexus avidior et calidior in feminas, tanto continentia maioris ardoris Jaboratior...” (10.2) A married man, Tertullian himself was no virgin. Having converted to Christianity as an adult, he decided to practice marital abstinence, and one gets the impression that he ‘took personal offense at the idea that a woman of any condition might be deemed holier than he.46 dedication to bodily integrity and mental purity. Yet they are also graces, gifts from God. Unless a person has received a special grace of chastity, s/he will hardly be able to fulfill a vow of abstinence in the face of untold temptations and uncertainties. In a sense, both the virgin and the celibate actively render to God what they have passively received from Him, However, Tertullian inserts the two terms into the gendered binary. placing grace on the side of woman and virtue on the side of man.** In making this distinction, Tertullian takes full advantage of the masculine implications of the word “virtus,” derived from “vir” meaning “man” and often used in classical Latin to denote manliness or manhood. The (female) dedicated virgin — if such a person can be said to exist ~is little more than the passive recipient of divine favor. The (male) celibate, by contrast, vigorously combats against the deadly combination of hotter desire, greater temptation, and lingering memories of past pleasures. Thus, even in striving to exempt themselves from the common class of womanhood, the dedicated virgins demonstrate that they are not to be classed among men, because they embrace the passive, feminine path of virginity, They lack the virtue, the manly fortitude, entailed in the struggle for continence, relying instead on the effortless magnanimity of God’s grace. Moreover, Tertullian is so determined to assert the superiority of continent men over virginal women that he even departs from a basic tenet of misogyny: that ‘women are more prone to camal desire than men, Rather, he claims that men are more ardent for women. This would seem to constitute women as the more virtuous 37 Non enim et continentia virgintati antisat sive viduorum sive qui ex consensu contumeliam communem iam recusaverunt? Nam vieginitas gratia constat, continentia vero virtute.” (10.3)"7 sex, Were it not for the way in which he evokes virtue as a manly struggle against vice. Because males are more ardent (or perhaps because females are more tempting?), men must struggle more vigorously in order to maintain their abstinence, and thus are more worthy of reward for having fought so heroically. This is really the point of Tertullian’s comparison of virginity and continence; to prove that chaste men are more deserving of distinction than chaste women. Such being the case, there can be no justification for honoring female virgins with a distinguishing sign, when male virgins “carry their glory in secret,” and when continent men, who wage the most difficult war against concupiscence, are not prominently marked for their virtuous struggle. For this reason, Tertullian deems it inconceivable that God would have ‘wanted female virgins to bear a mark of distinction, when continent men do not, particularly since He has always privileged men, who were made in His own image. He demands, “How, then, would God have failed to make any such concession to ‘men more (than to women), whether on the ground of nearer intimacy, as being “His ‘own image,” or on the ground of harder toil?” The author must insist on man being in the image of God by sheer virtue of his sex, or else the reader might notice that the absolute virginity of the Carthaginian women bears a closer resemblance to the total purity of Christ than does the partial abstinence of a continent but sexually experienced man like, say, Tertullian himself. If virginity were the superior type of abstinence, this would bode ill for men, because men are less likely to be virgins, and even the rare virginal man resists description and marking. The virginal female, by Both gratia and virtus are grammatically feminine.48 contrast, could be both marked and privileged by the absence of a veil, raising her to the level of all men without exception, since there is no way for the abstinent male to make a corresponding jump in status. Only by averring the superiority of continence over virginity could Tertullian maintain the established hierarchy. Tertullian raises the question of privilege in another way, as well: If virgins are truly distinet from women, he argues, why are they only privileged with the right to worship unveiled, and not with more meaningful masculine entitlements? Once again, Tertullian pushes the logic of his opponents to its seemingly absurd conclusion bby emphasizing the alarming implications of granting the virgin the visible mark of the status of men. The question of masculine privilege reveals that, at least in Tertullian’s understanding, consecrated virgins were seen as somehow more ‘masculine than other women, and with their uncovered heads were emulating men, who did not veil. Pious gender transgression certainly resonates in later Christian writing, which occasionally celebrates the spiritual virility of holy women or rebukes the “Womanish” moral fragility of failed male religious. It is in this spirit that Paulinus of Nola praised the manly fortitude of Melania the Blder, hailing her as a soldier of Christ; that Palladius styled this same woman a “female man of God’ and declared Olympias an anthrdpos ot manly creature; that Gregory of Nazianzus praised Nonna, who embodied the spirit of a man, and Melania the Younger, who had. achieved a manly mentality; that Jerome paid tribute to Paula, who was “forgetful of % — “Quomodo ergo non magis viris aliquid tale Deus in honorem subscripsisset vel quia familiariori scilcet imagini suae vel quia plus laboranti?” (10.3) © Palladius, Historia Lausiaca, ed. Cuthbert Butler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898), 128, cited in Cloke, 21449 her sex and weakness;”"! and that Augustine himself became forgetful of the sex of ‘the wise Monica.” Chastity, and especially virginity, could enable a woman to put aside the cares of spousal and maternal responsibilities, thereby granting her the freedom to achieve a masculine (i.e. active, reasoned, even courageous) dedication to spiritual matters. Thus, in Ambrose’s words, “as long as a woman is for birth and children, she is different from man as body is from soul. But when she wishes to serve Christ more than the world, she will cease to be a woman and will be called man.” Because of the duality that situates women on the side of the corporeal (matter) and men on the side of the spiritual (form), dedicated virginity among ‘women produces a sort of holy viraginity, a transcendence of feminine nature itself. In theory, the renunciation of sexuality and marriage may allow a woman, too, to be a miles Christi, a soldier of Christ, although female saints are rarely presented in thi mode. And yet, despite Jerome and Augustine’s claims of becoming unmindful of ‘gender, sex is never altogether forgotten. A saintly woman might strive to be like a ‘man, or even distinguish herself in some manly way, but in the end, she would still function ecelesiastically as a woman, excluded from most holy offices, residing after On the contrary, Tertullian actually refuses the virgin any distinguishing mark. As seen above, the veil he prescribes is not a sign of virginity, so much as a sign of mature womanhood (which typically entails marriage and sexual experience). The other ‘outward signs he recommends ~a sober mien, a lack of omamentation, a blush on. being seen by the opposite sex — are no different than what he advocates to all devout ‘women; indeed to all Christians. Unlike his adversaries, who seek to visibly indicate the virgin as such, and his successors, who will ironically establish “taking the veil” 48 a ritual manifestation of the consecration of one’s virginity, Tertullian recognizes that to mark the virgin goes against the nature of virginity itself. To visibly indicate the virgin is to communicate a sort of knowledge about the one who has never been known by any man. It is to impose an external marker on the one who bears no mark in her hidden anatomy or inmost soul. Even worse, once virginity has been designated an identifying signifier, it becomes subject to the pitfalls of language. Specifically, there would be no way to effectively limit who might bear or read such a signifier. Tertullian points out that the virgin, who publishes her virginity by worshipping sans veil, will not publicly reject this signifying practice should she fall. Rather, she will persist in clinging to the signifier long after that which is signified is lost, all the while rejecting or suppressing ® Cyprian, par. 9. Note that she ceases to be a virgin, not when she is actually desired, but ‘when she makes herself desirable,the signs of her changed status, even to the point of aborting a child conceived in secret, In this way, the virginity she has voluntarily pledged in perpetuity becomes involuntary once it becomes a public matter. (14.2-4) Tertullian also recognizes several potential readers who may interpret the signifier of virginity in such a way as to destroy the purity it was meant to signify. One is the virgin herself, who may read in her own distinctions a cause for haughtiness rather than a proof of humility, an unfortunate state of events which would inevitably lead to her defloration. (14.4) ‘Then, there are the onlookers of the community, who may perceive the marked virgin as a cause for glory, a target for temptation, a source of suspicion, and so on. (15.1) Finally, there is Satan, who by reading the signifier of untouched purity will enviously come to recognize his especial enemy, thereupon dedicating himself to her moral destruction. (15.2) Only God may read true virginity without destroying it or desiring its ruin, Likewise, only He may assure the ultimate coineidence of the sign and the signified, for as Tertullian insists, though debauched virgins may try to destroy the signs of their indiscretions, “Such virgins ever conceive with the readiest facility, and have the happiest deliveries, and children indeed most like to their fathers!” Being Truth, God alone may read and inscribe truly, because He is not restricted to operating through the signifier of a thing in order to know the thing itself, ‘Thus, God as the author of virginal virtue does not require a visible signifier of it in order to perceive it. (13.3) By now it should be clear why and to what degree De virginibus velandis opposes the establishment of an ecclesiastical vocation of female virgins. For Cyprian, par. 5,6s Tertullian, the only true virgin is one who is not known as a woman, does not know that she is a virgin, is perceived to be unripe, and yet is not ritually marked as virginal, In short, her sexual status should not be under conscious consideration by anyone, except perhaps by her Creator. Virginity may only exist as a secret. Of course, virginity would nevertheless go on to become a very visible vocation in the Church. Yet even though Tertullian’s successors would place virginity on a pedestal, they would also conceal the virgin under a veil in a cloister. There is a clear tension between the need to reveal the good and the need to protect it by concealing it, The fact is that patristic writers strongly discourage the virgin being viewed at all, since her exposure always entails the threat of defloration,” and yet as writers on virginity, they are parties to that exposure. Moreover, as we have seen, the danger of desire menaces both parties of the potentially illicit gaze. Even the language of sexual interactions is ambiguous in, regards to subjectivity, as illustrated in Tertullian’s use of the Latin noun stuprum, which can refer to any sexual act resulting in dishonor, whether forced or consensual. Thus, Tertullian uses the noun in De virginibus velandis to evoke the suffering of rape (“stupri passio”), and in De Cultu feminarum to warn that chastity requires more than the avoidance of fornication (“stupri auersione”). In both of these passages, % __“Facillime semper coneipiunt et flicissime pariunt huiusmodi virgnes et quidem simillimos pias” (14.3) Bioch and Cazelles use patristic writings to establish that the virgin ceases tobe so when viewed. (Block, 100-101, 109; Cazelles, 48-49.) It should be noted, however, that these documents reflect the historical exigencies of late antique communities as much as larger theological concerns. ‘Thus, while the Fathers view exposure as an endangerment to chastity under most conditions, they all acknowledge the unavoidability of a Christian woman being seen, as is clear from their concer with the dress ofthe virgin. Furthermore, as ecclesiastics in urban centers, not one of the Fathers whose ‘work Ihave discussed here instructs Virgins to take up an anchoritic life of seclusion orto cloister themselves far away from men. These situations would have constituted a different, but equally threatening ype of exposure forthe young women, as confirmed by Schulenburg’s research oa the frequency of attacks on female religious inthe early Middle Ages. (139-145)66 “stupri” could be rendered with the literal translation “shame,” because only the particulars of the context elucidate the relationship between the participants of the sex act, distinguishing the shame of violation from the shame of voluntary coitus. In Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law, Kathryn Gravdal demonstrates the linguistic inadequacy of Latin and Old French to name that which today is labeled rape, namely sexual activity under duress.”° French vernacular literature often employs euphemistic formulae that make it clear that a woman has been sexually violated through force, but as often as not, this is presented asa charming scene in which the hero wins the love of the heroine by raping her. ‘This shocking topos — which, however, is not unfamiliar to the modern movie viewer - is supported by the idea discussed by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas that a female victim of rape may experience pleasure of the flesh, manifested in a vaginal emission.”” In other words, violation may be linguistically and physiologically indistinguishable from fornication. Asif that were not enough, the ravisher often figures as the ravished, The initiator of sexual activity may be a lecherous man who looks with desire, but he may also be a chaste man whose eyes are assailed by feminine beauty. Likewise, the modest virgin may become corrupted by the admiring masculine gazes she attracts. 7% According to Gravdal, the Old French ferms stemming from the Latin rapere usually applied to the forcible or unlawful carrying off of women (and other property), often for the purpose of -marviage with all the legal and property rights matrimony entails, and not always for forced coitus alone. (Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law {Philadetphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991}, 45.) Dyan Elliot, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 48-49. Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg also liscusses this problematic stance in the writing of Aldheim and Hrotswitha von Gandersheim (131- 138).a Thus, the exposure that figures in one context as a rape resurfaces later in De virginibus velandis as a seduction of the virgin by unwitting seducers: Let her strive as much as you please with an honest mind; she must necessarily be imperiled by the public exhibition of herself, while she is penetrated by the gaze of untrustworthy and multitudinous eyes, while she is, tickled by pointing fingers, while she is too well loved, while she feels a ‘warmth ereep over her amid assiduous embraces and kisses. Thus the forehead hardens; thus the sense of shame wears away; thus it relaxes; thus Jearned the desire of pleasing in another way!”* ‘One may well wonder whether the author could write a passage such as this, bordering as it does on pornography, without danger to his own chastity. For that matter, we readers who look on at the scene share in a sort of guilty voyeurism. His is the pointing, tickling finger. Ours are the multitudinous, penetrating eyes. The literary complicity of author and audience in Tertullian’s depiction of the seduction of the imagined virgin, though ironic, can hardly be accidental.” ‘That the virgin is only envisioned through words and imagination, rather than literally seen with the eyes makes no difference. Tertullian himself does not insist on purely occular vision as the source of danger, but states that “omnis publicatio” is to a virgin a suffering of shameful intercourse. Publicatio, typically translated “public exposure,” is obviously the root of our modern word publication, but was used in classical Latin to name a confiscation for the public good.®” ‘Thus, Tertullian % “Quantum vetis bona mente conetur, necesse est publicatione sui periclitetur dum percutitur ‘culis incertis et malts, dum digitis demonstrantium titllaur, dum nimiom amatur, dum inter amplexus et osculaassidua conealeseit: si frons duratur, sic pudor teritur, si solvtur, sic discitur aliter iam placere desiderare.” (14.4) Thelwall translates the passive verb “percutitue” as “she is penetrated,” but it sa strong verb witha violent emphasis onthe prefix “per” or “through.” It can ‘mean to strike or pierce through, and by extension, to smite or kill. (4 Latin Dictionary, sv. “spercutio.”), What i at stake is nothing les than the destruction othe virgin through the gaze. Maud Melnemey critiques Tertullian’s ironic examination ofthe female virgin in a public ‘forum, suggesting that he wrote with vindictive intent: “In order to counter the threat posed to masculine authority and the social hierarchy of the African Church, he denies her virginity, enacting What is in essence a rhetorical rape.” (McInerney, 60). See also Bloch, 99-190 and Cazelle, 48-49. A Latin Dictionary, sv. “publicatio".68 admonishes not only that the virgin ought not be seen, but further, that she should be made neither public knowledge nor public property. Such a statement flies in the face of the budding vocation through which virgins were entering lifetime agreements to serve the Church — that is, the Christian community — with their hands, their personal wealth, and their prayers, considered the more valuable due to their intact purity. This attitude also conflicts with the goal of hagiography to offer the life of a saint as edifying material for the salvation of countless others. It suggests that, even in the act of celebrating Christian virtue, the exposed virgin and the well-meaning onlooker must be at once hapless victims and guilty participants. ‘Moreover, by insisting on the veil as an additional protective covering for the virgin (a visible hymen, as it were), Tertullian ironically increases the possibility that, she will experience the suffering of sexual shame, because the very removal of her covering whether literal or figurative constitutes a defloration, at least in his thought. Even in writing, whatever the motives for viewing or envisioning, “seeing and being seen belong to the self-same lust.” Nonetheless, as we shall see in the next chapter, later writers did not take the same hard line regarding the exposure of the virgin, because the Christian faith depends precisely on a negotiation between vision and veiling.0 Chapter 2 Seeing Faith Witnessing Virginity I will call upon the martyr, I will proclaim the virgin. Ambrose, De virginibus 2.6 “See Jane. See Jane run. Run, Jane, run!” Here we begin with two deictic sentences. The narrator speaks directly to the reader, focusing his or her attention first on the central character and then on the character's action. In the final sentence, the character herself has become the addressee, but it is no longer clear who utters the imperative. Certainly the audience viewing Jane is invited to join in speaking to her, ‘emphatically encouraging her to do what ~ it has been established ~ she already does. Ina sense, virgin martyr legends operate in the same fashion. The reader is directed to look upon the heroine, first observing her description and hagiographic type, and then her actions. Only through gazing upon her can the audience at last be brought to join with the narrator in addressing her. The legend may have already established the virgin’s intercessory powers, say that she succors laboring women or comforts the imprisoned or simply mediates for those who pray in her name. We, the textual community, will call upon her to do these things for us. Still, we do not address her until we have first looked upon her person and observed her torments. And so, 3 soon as the author has established why s/he has chosen to relate the legend to us, s/he immediately begins extending a pointing finger, fixing our gaze on the one to whom wwe are to speak.0 Tertullian warned that any publicario of the virgin proves her undoing. Yet, the virgin vocation depends precisely on the concept of publicatio, on the appropriation of the private and personal for the good of the community. This, in turn requires a publicatio ~ in the sense of an exposure ~ through which the virgin body is presented as an example and as the means to an edifying contemplation on the relationship of the material and the transcendent. ‘There are typically four critical points of exposure in the formula of an Old French virgin-martyr story. The first occurs at the beginning of the narrative, that is, during the author's prologue or when the actual storyline begins. This is the point at which the audience first “sees” the virgin, ‘The second takes place when a man within the legend catches sight of her, perceiving her as a sexual object. The third is actually a series of very public exposures and viewings during which the virgin is stripped naked and tortured, but also preserved and healed before a wide audience of pagans and Christians. The fourth and final visual moment comes with the death of the ‘gin, when her purity is visually established, either through a miracle (viewable by the onlookers within the narrative) or a vision of the saint in paradise (viewable by the audience of the vita). As I will demonstrate, close inspection of each of these incidents of exposure reveals that they may be subtly nuanced, and of course, each individual vita may diverge somewhat from the formula I have here imposed. The pattern is interesting, though, since it reveals the extent to which exposure and vision permeate the martyr’s passion, Obviously, the requirement that the virgin be viewed ill accords with ‘Tertullian’s critique of exposed virginity, as does the entire hagiographic enterprise,at least where virgins are concemed. Yet the virgin martyr legend flourished for centuries in Latin and vernacular literatures, and one may see in this further evidence of Tertullian’ s failure to impact Christian policy and practice. Be that as it may, in Teading the lives, it becomes obvious that his elaboration of the conflict between chastity and exposure is not without foundation. Far from ignoring the problem, however, the hagiographers themselves explicitly and implicitly address both the necessity of seeing and the pitfalls of vision. What results is a markedly different attitude toward the publicatio of the chaste maiden, one which takes into account her double role as virgin and martyr while exposing the mutual tension between the two functions. The source of this tension is precisely the problem of vision. ‘The martyr has a clear directive to demonstrate faith in God through visual means. The virgin, on the other hand, is usually exhorted to keep from view, even by writers who do not take as extreme a position on the problem of vision as Tertullian. The virgin martyr thus appears to be something of an oxymoron. If the virgin is beautiful ~ and in romance hagiography, she is always beautiful ~ how can she offer her body as visual proof of her faith without risking contamination from “untrustworthy and multitudinous eyes” and tickling “pointing fingers?” Conversely, even if the fair maiden remains herself unsullied, would not an unchaste gaze at her virginal body prove that she has failed as ‘a martyr, as one whose body provokes a vision of God’s own virtue? The word martyr, from the Greek martus, means “witness”, and indicates two critical visual functions. First, the martyr is the one who beholds God, despite the failings of the senses, the distractions of the world, and the deceptions of theAdversary. Secondly, the martyr is the one who acts as a reliable witness for those who have not yet experienced this vision, rendering the invisible visible through. corporal acts and miraculous manifestations. In fact, all saints perform this function to some degree. The very trappings of sanctity also echo this purpose — be they vitae, graphic representations, or actual relics — insofar as they are meant to enable us to “see” a holy person or event, and in this way to share the saints vision of God. Moreover, by embra ig suffering and execution, the martyr engages in imitatio Christi, a mimesis of Christ's own sacrifice, which, when successful, also has the effect of allowing the viewer to “see” God. ‘The inescapable “mma in this scenario is that the viewer may fix his or her gaze on one of these elements, failing to recognize its deictic purpose and mistaking it for the divine Object. This is well illustrated in Duccio’s late thirteenth-century painting, Rucellai Madonna (Figure 1), which depicts six angels genuflecting symmetrically about an oversized Gothic throne, in which sits Mary with the Christ child on her lap. The audience is presumably intended to follow the gaze of the angels towards the center of the painting. ‘There, the Virgin peers at the viewer, but her inclined head leads the eye to the holy infant. However, the audience could easily become distracted, admiring the attractiveness of the angels, the ornate majesty of the throne, or the Madonna’s strikingly dark robes. Moreover, the viewer might focus on ‘Mary's arresting stare or on the gold leaf that dazzlingly illumines the scene. Yet even if the viewer sees all of these elements as pointers towards or illustrations of God's glory, all is lost if s/he gazes upon the rendering of Christ but fails to imagine the true Christ. Even the child gestures away from himself!B ‘The failure to see the trappings of a painting, saint's life, or what have you in its deictic capacity is not a simple mistake; it is a sin. In the same vein, Lucifer saw in himself the ultimate good and succumbed to pride, self-idolatry, and envy against the power and status of the Creator. Eve, beholding the forbidden fruit, was overtaken by both pride (for she was told that to eat of it would render her like God) and desire. Thus, sin, especially idolatry, entered the world through the senses, and particularly through faulty vision. Figure I. Duccio di Buoninsegna, RucellaiMadonna, tempera on wood, c.1285, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, taly, deposited in the Church Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy." Yet, if sanctity in general depends on a process of improving one’s own vision and properly directing the vision of others, there can be no saintly endeavor that does not entail the risk of inciting pride, envy, lust, or idolatry. For the virgin, the problem is intensified, because her femininity and corporeal beauty increase the odds that she will be viewed as an object of desire (an end in herself), rather than as a pointer to God (a means to an end). Perhaps because this hazard exists even among the faithful, hagiographers highlight the danger, rather than ignoring or obscuring it. Thus, they consistently describe the virgin as beautiful, even though that beauty may prove a stumbling block, if not to herself, then to those who perceive it. And so, the mutually menacing relationship between virginity and martyrdom remains pointedly in place. Even if one does not believe that, as Tertullian asserts, every publicatio of a virgin is equivalent to a rape, a defloration, there is no escaping the problem that public exposure certainly threatens the humility that all Catholic ‘auctores posit as the seal and sign of virginity. Moreover, virginity is by its very nature a concealed secret, whereas martyrdom can only exist as a public pronouncement, since if the circumstances of it are not known, it could hardly be considered a witnessing. Add to the tensions between virginity and martyrdom that the virgin saint is always visibly attractive, and there is grave doubt that she is a suitable candidate to provoke a vision of God as the martyr must. It seems more probable that she will offer nothing more than the sight of her own body. Nevertheless, since the publicatio is both intrinsic and threatening to the function of any saint, it must be conceded that the obvious oxymoron of the virgin martyr is, useful for problematizing sanctity itself, The danger always exists that a saintly15 purpose may be corrupted through public dealings, and that the saint's (graphic or textual) representation may place a greater emphasis on his/her personal beauty than his/her deictic relationship to God. The opposition of the virgin martyr’s hidden, fragile purity and her vociferous, spectacular sacrifice, made even more prominent because of the unwanted attention her feminine beauty elicits, serves to underscore the quandary that often goes unnoticed in the commemoration of other saints; the problem of vision that is inescapable in hagiography. Despite the difficulties that in particular make martyrdom and virginity seem almost mutually exclusive, the vitae nonetheless maintain that the virgin’s purity is never compromised through her exposure as a martyr, and that the “witne ing” of her immolation does not fail on account of her virginal loveliness. Quite the contrary, both her virginity and her patient suffering of atrocities serve as references to Christ. In order to determine how the virgin martyr manages to accomplish both functions, T will examine a vita that places particular emphasis on the problem of vision: a life of Saint Faith by the Anglo-Norman hagiographer Simon of Walsingham. This text reveals that the virgin martyr narrative only succeeds through a complex negotiation, of veiling and exposure, a precarious balancing act that even employs exposure itself as a sort of veil. The Jewel and the Truth of Faith «the cause of all martyrdom is the truth of faith. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part, Question 124, Article 56 During the first quarter of the thirteenth century, Simon de Walsingham, a monk of the famous royal abbey at Bury St. Edmund’s in Suffolk, translated the life of Saint Faith (on whose feast day he was born) into Norman French.! ‘The vita had been composed in Latin in prose starting in the ninth century and in verse starting in the eleventh, and the earliest extant versions (tenth century) may be found in Paris, B.N. MS lat. 5301 and Montpellier, Library of the School of Medicine, MS H 152. It is not clear which precise documents Simon consulted, but he seems to have used both metric and prose versions of the passio, very likely through the breviary of St. ‘Osmund, which was used in several English dioceses.” He also appears to have been familiar with the liturgical Office of Saint Faith and the Liber miraculorum sancta Fidis, a work of four books relating het posthumous miracles.’ Simon does not devote much space to the relation of the miracles, saying that he would like to do so if he had mote time (“E en ses miracles orrez/ Quant greigniur leisir averay...” “And you will hear of her miracles / When [have greater leisure...” — lines 968-969). 7 ‘The Welbeck manuscipt in which this vita is found contains thirteen Anglo-Norman lives, seven of which are of female saints, ranging from the biblical figure Mary Magdalene tothe early Cristian virgin martyrs Faith and Catherine of Alexandeia to the medieval princesses Osgitha and Elizabeth of Hungary. 2 See the introduction by AT. Baker to Simon de Walsingham, “Vie anglo-normande de sinte Foy." ed. A.T. Baker, Romania 66 (1940-1941): 53-56 and that of Pamela Sheingorn in Pamela Sheingom, tans. and ed, The Book of Sainte Foy Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 21-22. The earliest extant Lain versions apparently vary only slightly. The versions found in the Osmond breviary seem to be the same asthe Latin verse and prose versions preserved in the Acta Sanctorum (October 3 and 6) which were also edited elsewhere by Bouillet and Servigres and then ‘again by Hoepfiner and Alfarc in their 1926 edition of La Chanson de Sainte Foy. In her collection of Sainte Foy-rlated texts, The Book of Sainte Foy; Pamela Sheingom translates the Bouillet and Servite edition of the prose passo, whereas in Baker's edition of Simon's Anglo-Norman text, he provides parallel passages from a combination of the Latin versions. Tn addition to the Acta Sanetorum texts, he cites those found in the Osmond breviary, the Arundel manuscript (British Library MS ‘Arundel lat 91), and the Sélestat manuscript (Bibliotheque Humaniste MS lat. 22), which was writen ‘and bound ina form specifically to be used in the liturgy >The first two books were written by Berard of Angers inthe first quarter ofthe eleventh century. Not long after Bernard's death in 1020, an anonymous monk redacted Book Three, and Book Four, which had several contributors, was written toward the middie of the century. All four books are described (22-26) and translated (39-261) in Sheingom’s Book of Sainte Foy1 However, afier he has concluded the narrative of Faith’s passion, he does give a detailed account of the furtive translation of her relics from Agen to Conques, indicating that he was also familiar with the translatio metrica, a late eleventh- century verse work about the theft, a story as gripping as that of the saint's life itself* In short, Simon of Walsingham’s “translation” is the trans-latio, the carrying over, of an entire body of Latin work into romanz (that is, into the French which was no less a foreign language to the English monk).* More than just a literary piece, his text grew out of and took part in a canon, itself a vital part of the cult of a virgin martyr, who as a powerful intercessor was increasingly being called upon by thousands across western Europe. In the very first couplet, Simon both addresses and defines his audience: “Seignurs, vous que en Deu creez ¢ en la fei estes fermeez...."° From this, we may gather that the target audience is male, of respectable rank, and devout; most probably, Simon’s fellow monks. Simon also tells us that he was charged with translating the life by a well-educated gentleman monk, presumably his superior. ‘Thus, we have a relatively rare instance in romance hagiography in which, not only CC. the note om line 900 from Baker’s edition of Simon's text, The Bollandists’ prose version. of the translatio is translated by Sheingom (263-274), and concludes her corpus of Latin texts on Faith, although she also provides an eleventh-century Provencal work, the Chanson de Sainte Foy, translated by Robert L.A. Clark, : ‘Medieval vitae, especially those written by monks and nuns, tend to begin with the humility topos, in which the Latin or vernacular redactor apologizes for his or her lack of skill as a writer and rogrets that s/he must be the one to relate the material, this deficiency notwithstanding. The monk ‘Simon laments his shortcomings in both languages, referring to himself as “Jeo ke ne sui guere letté/ Etpovrement enromancé.” ("l, who am scarcely leitered/ And poorly skilled in romanz.” ~ lines 37- 38) fe lords, who believe in God and are firm in faith...” (lines 1-2.) This is also the first of ‘many indications thatthe text was intended as oral rather than writen literature.8 do we know the name of the author, but we also know important details about the person for whom the story is written, as well as the intended audience.” Another significant feature of this vita is that it actually relates the passions of four saints, one female and three male. Faith, a maiden of Agen during the Maximilian and Diocletian persecutions, has a particular reputation for piety, and thus is singled out by the pagan governor Dacian, Caprais, a virtuous Christian youth, watches Faiths immolation from a safe distance until, granted a vision of the heavenly glory she has already won, he rushes to Dacian to seek his own martyrdom. His subsequent torments in turn inspire two brothers, Prime and Felician, to join him. ‘The four are then beheaded together. Thus, it is possible to compare the treatment of a female martyr with that of male martyrs in a single literary piece. In the Vie sainte Fey, no human character explicitly attempts to enter into a sexual relationship with the heroine. Because there is no overt attempt at seduction, Faith never makes a speech defending her virginity, and thus never proclaims that she has consecrated herself to Christ through sexual and marital renunciation. Only implicitly are the links established between virginity and Christianity on the one ‘hand, sexuality and apostasy on the other. In general, Faith's virginity is relatively low-key, and Simon prefers the terms pucele or meschine (maid, lass, little miss) to virgine, a word that unambiguously marks her as a sacerdotal virgin, using it only ina single post mortem reference.” Be that as it may, she is introduced as a “seintissime 2 ‘We know, for instance, that the monk or abbot who ordered Simon to write the vita grew up in Faith's own country, which I take to mean Aquitaine or Gascony. ‘ ‘The earliest extant Latin passions make no mention of the martyrdoms of the two brothers. In the narratives that do include them, they are relatively minor characters, thoroughly dwarfed by Faith and Caprais. : Line 961. ‘The rubric that begins the vita labels Faith “virgine et martire,” in keeping with the Latin liturgical formula. Since this use of virgine is notin the body of the text and may have been2» pucele” (ine 19), and the consistent linking of Faith with Mary frames her as a virgin, further clarifying that the term pucele refers to both youth and sexual inexperience. Another indication that she is meant to be understood as a virgin in the ecclesiastical sense, is that Simon often refers to Faith as Charist’s amie or drue ~ His sweetheart. In La Vie sainte Fey, the words amie and especially drue are not translations, for no such terms appear in the Latin texts that may have been at Simon's disposal. Rather, they are borrowed from the secular vocabulary of courtly love literature. By referring to his heroine as the lady friend or beloved of Christ, Simon posits a coded relationship between the two that excludes any possibility of Faith ever taking a mortal husband or lover. In short, Saint Faith's sacerdotal virginity, while never explored, is nonetheless exposed by the author in relatively subile, yet easily recognizable ways, and thus must be taken into account. It should be noted, by the way, that none of the male martyrs are said to be virginal, not even Caprais, who like Faith is virtuous, youthful, attractive, and a baptized Christian.” Given that this “bacheler” has loved and served Christ since his childhood, one might ‘well assume his corporal purity, but the subject simply fails to be directly addressed. Either Simon would have his hero “carry his glory in secret,” or more likely, virginity is not integral to masculine martyrdom, as it unarguably is to feminine martyrdom, at least in the Old French hagiographic corpus. ‘added by the scribe (probably even a different scribe from the one who transcribed the legend, since only in the rubric is “sainte” spelled with an “a"), Ido not count it in my consideration of Simon's language, but itis noteworthy, since it reminds us that Faith's identity as a virgin would have been annually acknowledged through this formuta as part ofthe offices of her feast day Typically, when onlookers become inspired to join a virgin in her martyrdom, they are pagan, and their executions as Christians constitute a baptism in blood. Since Caprais is already baptized, he, like Faith, is well instructed in the tenets of the faith.80 Simon of Walsingham’s narrative, like the Latin and Provencal texts, devotes special attention to Faith, prioritizing her over the other martyrs, as the title indicates. The prologue say’ that this story is about her, and only in reading the narrative of her passion does one at last discover that the three holy men play a role. In the first twenty-eight lines of the legend alone, the homophones “fei/Fey” are used eight times,"! while variants of the word “seint” occur nine times, so that “seinte Fey” echoes through the opening of the tale. Simon's prayers provide further evidence of Faith’s saintly position relative to those of the male saints who share her passion, for not once does he make an appeal to Caprais, Prime, or Felician. Rather, he states that he has undertaken the romancing of the Latin legends in the hopes that the virgin will intercede for his salvation (lines 69-74), and he exhorts his audience to pray to Christ, Mary, and Saint Faith, a trio of figures that is repeated throughout the text. (lines 103- 106) By the final prayer, the male saints are completely forgotten, as Simon refers to a singular “martir,” for whose love God may offer forgiveness to those who remember her. (lines 1237-1242) That Caprais, Prime, and Felician only achieve the triumph of martyrdom through the example of Faith establishes her as an influence that may ultimately bring men to salvation. Thus, of the four martyrs, only Faith is recognized as having power in the one matter that most concerns the author: his own redemption. ‘Simon is not alone in according Faith a privileged status; her cult historically depicts her as endowed with outstanding power when compared to the other saints. It Fey” as a common noun means “faith” in the sense of a belief system and also in the sense of fidelity and fealty. It is Simon's constant play on this word that has prompted me to use the American Catholic version of the saint's name when discussing his text, as opposed to the more common. ‘medievalist use of the French and British “Foy.”8 is interesting that of the four martyrs, Faith, or Sainte Foy, as she is usually called in British hagiography, is by far the most prominent in the medieval cult of saints. Her shrine at Conques in south-central France became a major pilgrimage site, nspiring ‘multiple written accounts of her passion, her miracles, and her famous furtive translation ~ or transfer of relics — from Agen.'* According to the translatio that appears in the Acta Sanctorum, the corpses of the four were secretly and inappropriately buried together by the persecuted Christian community, but when later discovered were fittingly enshrined in separate churches, “The most blessed virgin Foy, who surpassed the others in her palm of victory,” was particularly revered, entombed in a marble mausoleum inside a basilica built in her honor.'* Later, Faith’s cult eclipsed that of another male saint, Vincent of Pompéjac. It seems that the community at Conques stole both their relics during a single escapade, although the eleventh-century translation legends only mention the theft of the more popular virgin.'* In addition to setting her apart from other saints, the corpus of writings on Faith portrays her as demonstrating both subjectivity and power. One adherent of her cult beseeches her thus: Hail, star, Foy, you who are the greatest of heaven's citizens, O hope, grandeur, salvation, power, flower, glory and starbearing light, you who reign with the Lord in heaven’s halls. Wherefore, pious virgin of God, hasten to assist an insignificant creature...’ ‘The theft of Saint Faith’s relics from their city of origin and the rranslavio commemorating the ‘event are discussed in Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics inthe Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 58-63 and 138-141 and in Sheingorn’s Book of Sainte Foy, 9-10, 18, and 26. Cf. note 4 above. 18°" 'Sheingom, 265. 4 Geary, 62. "5 Sheingorn, 274,82 ‘The extraordinary status accorded Sainte Foy is striking for a martyred gitl, when one considers that she is placed above all holy men, including popes, Doctors of the Church, and apostles. Perhaps this is nothing more than panegyrical hyperbole, but it seems far less exaggerated when one considers her innumerable manifestations of divine power, which is to say her miracles at Agen and Conques. Indeed, A.T. Baker remarks in his introduction to the Simon de Walsingham text that “Sauf les grands saints du calendrier romain, aucun saint n’a joui d’une réputation plus considérable, als fut le sujet d’une vénération plus sincére que la vierge martyre d’ Agen, Given her famed level of miraculous activity in her adoptive community, it seems perfectly natural that the author of the above prayer, a monk of the abbey at Conques, would think of her as second in power only to God. A collection of four eleventh- century Latin books records nearly one hundred miracles of Saint Faith at that abbey and in the surrounding region, and this despite the numerous claims of Bernard of Angers, the somewhat scientific author of the first two books, to have left out accounts of wonders that were overly redundant, or that could not be sufficiently verified, wi ile miraculous healings are often associated with saints’ shrines, Faith is typically portrayed as taking an active part in determining whether an adherent’s entreaties are heard. Oftentimes her role is inferred. If an adherent of the virgin or someone pledging a vow to her is saved from dire peril, she is said to have saved him or her. If someone says or does something considered insulting to her majesty or her home abbey, she is depicted as having avenged herself when that person meets with 16 AT. Baker, introduction to “Vie anglo-normande de sainte Fo Romania 66 (1940-1941): 57. " by Simon de Walsingham,83 ill fortune. In the twenty-seventh miracle of the first book, for example, an inhabitant of Conques reports that whenever he has had sexual intercourse and then visited the sanctuary of Sainte Foy without first washing himself, bad luck has befallen him that same day, demonstrating how “vexed” the virgin is with the thoughtlessness of the unchaste.'” Notably, the miracles of Sainte Foy are not confined to Congues, but are often said to take plice a great distance away. Contrast that with the limited power of, Caprais who, in rushing to join Faith in her martyrdom, is reported to have struck his stone hiding-place with his right hand from which healing waters rush forth to this day. In the case of the male martyr, the restorative virtue is accessed through simply drinking the water, instead of through the direct intercession of the saint, and it is restricted to a particular site.'* As if to prove the particular power of Sainte Foy, Bernard recounts an occasion when the religious houses throughout the diocese gathered for a synod, bringing their most distinguished relics with them. Amidst this holy company, it was Faith that was glorified by God through healing miracles. ‘When a blind and lame man came to the synod and prayed earnestly before the reliquary of Marius the Confessor, a saint well known for his wondrous cures, he heard a voice instructing him to go instead to Faith, who healed him instantly.'? In the libri miraculorum, not only does Faith personally intervene in the healings of those who appeal to her, but she also performs miracles through which she exerts her influence on the affairs of the region. For example, she frees prisoners, chastises the powerful, and wreaks violent vengeance upon individuals who scorn her (ie. who economically or politically oppose the abbey). In addition, the more novel, ‘Sheingorn, 97. 8 Thid,, 35-36 and Simon de Walsingham, lines 603-620,84 capricious, and humorous of the miracles are referred to as joca or Judi, for the locals regarded them as Sainte Foy’s jokes.”” In each of these categories of miracles, there are numerous visions of the saint as a quite young, exceptionally beautiful, even demure girl, who nonetheless addresses friend and foe with authority. The recurring visual manifestations of the virgin bolster the audience’ belief in her historical existence, her sanctity, and her power to intervene in the affairs of the greater community. In Simon of Walsingham’ s Vie sainte Fey, Faith’s especial status in relation to the holy men of the narrative comes in part from her having been the first in her community to embrace martyrdom, for he points out that as the first martyr of Agen, she is the jewel of that city. (line 136) In fact, Simon repeatedly refers to Faith as a “gemme,” although he never uses that image for the male martyrs. Itis a seemingly curious metaphor, given his assertion that Saint Faith desired knowledge more than property, chastity more than gold, and humility more than treasure. How is it that the ‘Sheingom, 98.99. ‘These might involve the recovery or resurrection of an animal and apparently made the saint herself the butt of derisive jokes. ([bid., 24.) For example, the fourth book of miracles relates how the virgin advised a warrior with a herniated scrotum that he would be healed if he placed the painful ‘member on an anvil and allowed a cestain blacksmith to strike it with a hammer. In the crucial ‘moment, he recoiled with such force that he was cured. (Ibid., 216-217.) Perhaps the association of ‘ith with jesting stems from the tradition that she was very young ~ indeed, scarcely at the age of sexual consent - atthe time of her martyrdom. In fact, her legend includes some characteristics of the passion of a child saint. In their analysis ofthe libri miraculorum, Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingomn acknowledge the possible connection between Sainte Foy’s immaturity and her jocosity, but noting that her ludi only appear in the first two books, they argue that it is actually part of a larger program of Bernard of Angers, the original recorder of the miracles, to structure his books as trickster text, (Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingor, Writing Faith: Text, Sign & History nthe Miracles of Sainte Foy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999], 32-33.) Amy Remensnyder notes that Sainte Foy's joking behavior isin fact unusual, because the more typical portrayal of a child saint would be that ofthe puer senex, the “old child” who behaves with remarkable gravity, always praying rather than playing. She conjectures that Sainte Foy’s identity as a layperson and a young girl ‘was stressed in an effort to endear her to the laity, thereby increasing the popularity of her shrine. (AG. Remensnyder, “Un probleme de cultures ou de culture? La statue-reliquaire et les joca de sainte Foy de Conques dans le Liber miraculorum de Bernard d Angers," Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 33 [October-December 1990]: 376-378.)85 virgin disdains material riches, and is herself reduced to nothing more than a token of luxury? In the second chapter of Medieval Misogyny, “Early Christianity and the Estheticization of Gender,” Bloch examines the patristic association of the feminine with the cosmetic. He points out that Eve, derivative from Adam, was thought of as inessential and even figural by nature.”" He further notes the conception of women as both decorative and decorated, as in the aforementioned Pauline teaching that women should veil their heads, because even their hair has been given to them as a covering.” Moreover, he examines the patristic condemnation of women for their excessive ornamentation and for their assigning greater value to the artificial than to the natural, which is tantamount to scorn for the works of the Creator.”* As elsewhere, Bloch relies heavily on the writings of Tertullian, assimilating his extreme misogynist beliefs to the positions of less contentious and more influential Nicene and post-Nicene writers.”* Nonetheless, there is no denying the patristic correlation between unseemly ornamentation and the feminine, since women were most often criticized for this flaw, and since men who paid too much attention to their grooming were viewed as womanish.* The Fathers repeatedly criticize women who engage in Bloch, 38 and 40. 2 id, 40, : Ibid, 39-47. Specifically, Bloch uses Tertullian’s De cultu feminarum and De Pallio. In an endnote, he defends his use of Tertullian against the objection that his position was idiosyncratic. He quotes Peter Brown's assessment that Tertullian’s writings represent an amalgam of the various thoughts in circulation in a major Latin church in the third century. (Brown, 76.) What Bloch fails to do is to establish whether Tertlian’s severe condemnation of women was typical of the greater Latin Church in subsequent centuries, and specifically during the Middle Ages. % Inhis letter to Eustochium, Jerome devotes a sizeable paragraph to those clergymen whose “locks show traces of the curling iron, their fingers gleam with rings, and they take mincing litle steps so that the wet streets may not bespatter their feet.” (28.3) While it does not explicitly question the ‘masculinity of such men, the passage elaborates on the previous paragraph, in which he criticizes ‘overzealous women who dress as men. The idea that these finely dressed preachers are engaged in a86 ostentatious displays of wealth with jewels and precious metals. The metaphor of Faith as a jewel seems at first glance in keeping with this misogynist idea of woman as omamental and given to omamentation. ‘must agree with Bloch that, even for virtuous women, there is no escape from the aesthetic and cosmetic, For instance, Ambrose advises Marcellina and her fellow virgins, “in you the rejection of all care for splendor is far more becoming, and the very fact that you do not adorm yourselves is an ornament.”"** Cyprian, who studied and most closely followed Tertullian, rails against women’s fashion and adornments in his treatise On the Dress of Virgins. Nonetheless, he commends decorating the virgin body with the wounds of martyrdom, proclaiming, “These are the precious jewels of the flesh, these are the better ornaments of the body."”” Feminine virginity itself may also be viewed as decorative. John Chrysostom argues that finery detracts from the natural beauty of attractive women while exaggerating the defects of homely women. True virginity, by contrast, acts as a reliable cosmetic: But the ornamentation of virginity is not ike this. It does not detract from the one wearing it because it is not corporeal but wholly spiritual. Therefore, if the virgin is unattractive, virginity immediately transforms her ugliness by surrounding it with an irresistible beauty. If she is in the bloom of youth and radiant, virginity makes her brighter still.* Artificial ornamentation covers or distorts the beauty that God has created, perverting the external truth of the body (its age, hair color, etc.) and obscuring the inner truth that the body is meant to reflect (ie. the beauty of the soul). Itis the type of veil that merely conceals. Spiritual ornamentation, by contrast, beautifies precisely because of ‘woeful gender reversal is further reinforced by that pat of the passage in which he inveighs against one particular dandy, who also engages in another vice associated with women: gossip mongering. 08.46) 2° Ambrose, 10.54.87 its transparency. The woman who, focused on God, the source of true beauty, does not concern herself with extemal allurements, necessarily is filled with godly beauty. Her spiritual loveliness in turn may emanate forth visibly, since it is not obscured by any display of falseness. However, let us keep in mind that this too is a veil, because although spiritual beauty should reveal the beauty of God, if mistaken for or subsumed into corporeal beauty, it will conceal its true source. ‘The Fathers present another problem, as well. If holy women truly do not care about external appearances and shun the power of adornments to enable them to please men, why do Ambrose, Cyprian, Chrysostom and others instruct them in the application of spiritual ornamentations? Why exhort women to seek the “jewels of the flesh,” if they honestly have no concern for decoration, or assure them that their disregard for splendor is becoming when they do not seek masculine validation of their appearance? Significantly, whereas women may be encouraged to think of a martyr’s wounds and rewards as adornment, such language is not used when addressing men. However, in addresses to members of the fair sex, there is the striking assumption that Woman — holy women included — desires to be seen as beautiful. Rather than dissuading their female readers away from a pursuit of beauty, the authors simply redefine what makes a woman truly attractive, steering their audience to a pursuit of spiritual rather than superficial beauty. In so doing, these men establish themselves as the authoritative arbiters of the aesthetic, contrasting their own proper vision with the sinful tastes inherent to women, A masculine audience is thus implied, as if the woman is meant to adorn herself with virginity in Cyprian, 6, John Chrysostom, 63.188 order to make an impression on Christ the Bridegroom, the pagan observer, the members of the Church, and/or the authors themselves. Inescapably, the conceptualization and recommendation of feminine virtue (by male advisors who wield enormous influence over their female followers) entails women donning spiritual decoration with the hope of pleasing a masculine observer, even if that observer is none other than God.” ‘The Fathers certainly disparaged literal ornamentation and women’s pursuit of it, but in fact, they present fine garments, gemstones, gold, and even ornament itself in a positive zat when these items represent spiritual purity and immaterial beauty. Faith is not the only jewel among virgin saints. In Wace’s twelfth-century life of Saint Margaret of Antioch, she is likewise depicted as a “geme preciouse,” and the author explains that she was aptly named, since she resembled a “margetie” — a pearl — in her physical beauty, as well as in her worthy life. °° In medieval texts with their strong tendency to allegory, the virgin may also be described in a way that evokes either the traditional symbolism or the perceived virtue of the particular jewel to which she is likened. Thus, in Nicholas Bozon’s late thirteenth-century life of Saint ‘Margaret, the author identifies the three virtues of the peatl, recalling that it is known to staunch blood, to sooth the troubled heart, and to strengthen the spirit. Margaret, Because sacerdotal virginity was conceived primarily as spiritual nuptials to Christ, any physical unattractiveness that repulsed men could assist the virgin in avoiding a temporal marriage in favor of an everlasting one, The work on inedia among holy women by Caroline Walker Bynum and Rudolph Bell certainly confirms that emaciation and self-disfigurement through asceticism could ‘enable a gir to frustrate the marital hopes of suitors and family members, permitting her to give herself 10 Christ alone. In Forgerful of Their Sex, Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg discusses virginitas deformitate defensa, the strategy in which a virgin mutilates herself, cuts her hair, or prays for a disfiguring condition in order to avoid rape or marriage. (139-175) She notes that many of these saints were said to care only about their beauty in the eyes of Christ. (174) As anormal girl might adorn herself in order to win a husband, the bride of Christ might pursue physical ugliness and deformity in order to win her Bridegroom,89 he points out, staunched her familial blood by remaining virginal against the wishes of her relations, allayed the grief of many through her prayers, and strengthened spirits through the brave example of her martyrdom."! Likewise, a twelfth-century Old French verse rendering of the Song of Songs pronounces, “Les saintes virges, ‘Deu espeuses, / Sunt esmeraugdes precieuses.”” In a note, Cedric E. Pickford, the editor of the poem, remarks that medieval lapidaries recommend emeralds as a guard against passion and luxuriousness.”? ‘Simon does not liken Faith to a particular gem with specific virtues, but he does evoke that which is proper to a jewel generally speaking. For him, the most salient aspect of the gemstone metaphor is not beauty or value. Rather, the author focuses on what he perceives as the inherent virtue of the jewel, in this case its luminosity. A jewel sparkles so that its brilliant shining attracts the eye. However, the light that it seems to emit does not, of course, originate from within it; it has an outside source. The gemstone merely focuses and refracts the light. What, then is the source of the light? The rays of the sun? These are emitted from the sun itself, and even it is only a reflection of pure light, as Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite explains: “From the Good comes the light which is an image of Goodness; wherefore the Good is described by the name of ‘Light,’ being the archetype thereof which is revealed in that image.” Solar light is a likeness of divine goodness, and so God is represented "Wace, La Vie de sainte Marguerite, ed. Elizabeth A. Francis (Patis: Librairie Ancienne ‘Edouard Champion, 1932), lines 11-15. 31 Nicholas Bozon, La Vie seinte Margarete, in Three Saints” Lives by Nicholas Bozon, ed. Sister M. Amelia (Klenke) (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 1947), lines 13-34, yr “"““The holy virgins, brides of God, / Are precious emeralds." The Song of Songs: A Twelfth- Century French Version, ed. Cedric E. Pickford (London: University of Hull, 1974), 46, 3" The Song of Songs: A Twelfth- Cenaury French Version, 111. * Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, trans. C. (Kessinger Publishing Company, 1997), 91. -Roltas the sun, the source of light of which God is the archetype. Thus, in medieval sacred arts such as illumination, stained glass work, painting, and architecture, the goal of the artist was to catch the light: to illuminate the work with the light that visibly reflects the light of God. This required a selection of materials whose property it is to receive and return light, because as Pseudo-Dionysius writes, every material thing does not equally share that capacity: ‘This great, all-bright and ever-shining sun, which is the visible image of the Divine Goodness, faintly reechoing the activity of the Good, illumines all things that can receive its light while retaining the utter simplicity of light, and expands above and below throughout the visible world the beams of its own radiance. And if there is aught that does not share them, this is not due to any weakness or deficiency in its distribution of the light, but is due to the unteceptiveness of those creatures which do not attain sufficient singleness to participate therein.** ‘The jewel, in its clarity and purity, is particularly receptive to light, visibly reflecting solar radiance. So too, the virgin, as jewel, through her lack of superfluous adomment (which would block the Light) and through the purity of her bodily intactness and spiritual integrity, is especially receptive to and reflective of the Light. Faith, the “gemme” shines with a spiritual beauty, a light that emanates not from her body, nor even from her soul, but from God’s own radiance. In her gem- like nature, Faith also reveals the virtue implied in her own name, Paul defines that virtue thus: “Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.”** Through her luminosity and pure simplicity, Faith is meant to radiate the light of God, suggesting through this reflection the things to be hoped for and making evident the unseen Good. This is not to say, however, that she makes Dionysius the Areopagite, 92.oO patently visible the Truth that is her object, but only suggests it through reflection. A jewel does not contain or show the sun itself, but refers back to the sun as the source of its radiance. At the same time, the glistening jewel draws the eye with its refracted and intensified beams, Through her shining, the gem Faith also attracts the gaze which, when all goes well, is then directed to the true source of her light. ‘The beauty of Faith is therefore a reflective beauty. Pure and transparent, there is even reflection between the virgin’s interior and exterior, as suggested in 10n’s description of Sainte Foy as “beautiful of face, more beautiful in faith.” (line 20) This tum of phrase borrows a common hagiographical formula that literally goes back to the very beginning of Old French literature, since a complex variation of the topos may be found in the opening line of the oldest known literary work in French: the late ninth-century Cantiléne de sainte Eulalie, This short life of Saint Eulalia, written shortly after the discovery of the virgin’s relics at the Abbey of Saint Amand in 878, opens with the archetypical description of the virgin martyr: “Buona pulcella fut Eulalia, / Bel avret corps, bellezour anima.”"” From the very outset, the hagiographer has violated the virgin’s chastity — at least, from a Tertullianist perspective — for not only does s/he characterize and name the heroine as part of an appropriation of her life for the public good, but s/he also provides a description of % Hebrews 11.1. In the Summa theologica, Thomas Aquinas insists on this as the standard definition. (Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 24 ed., trans, Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns, Oates & Washburne, td, 1920], 2-2.4.1.) ¥ “Bulalia was a good maiden, Her body was beautiful, her soul even more so.” Prose de sainte Eulalie, in Recuell d'anciens texts bas-latins, provencaus, et francais, ed, Paul Meyer (Paris: F. Vieweg, 1877.), lines 1-2. In the Meyer edition, the passage is printed as a single run-on sentence broken into a couplet, and I have followed this format, but in the actual manuscript, it appears as a single line and is broken into two sentences. (Valenciennes, ms. 143, fol. 41, which may be seen online at Centre Universitaire du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, Département des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines, “La Cantiléne de sainte Eulalic.” in BABEL; available from hhup:/www restena.lu/eu/BABELIT_MSG_CANTILENE htm Internet; accessed 8 February 2003her body, which, although quite vague, nonetheless constitutes a visual exposure to those who may desire her. Of course, it is a convention of Old French literature to present female characters as beautiful, yet the complex attitude of Christian theologians towards feminine beauty would suggest that such a depiction ina hagiographical text is not intended merely as a customary acknowledgement of the heroine's comeliness. In any case, the description of the lady of romance as beautiful is fundamentally an assessment of her worth, that is, her worth to men within the sexual economy. One must assume that Eulalia’s worth is not predicated on her beauty, if what is meant by this is her ability to entice men. Nevertheless, one may well wonder whether there is any justifiable purpose for pointing out Eulalia’s bel corps, her beautiful body, in only the second line of the vita. In point of fact, given the absence of a title or prologue, the audience has not yet been informed that this character’s body has been removed from the sexual economy, since the word pulcella from the first line is as imprecise as Tertullian’s use of the term virgo. It may indicate a young girl, an unmarried woman (who does not necessarily shun the potential for marriage), and/or a virgin (who does not necessarily shun the potential for sexuality), in the same way that the English word maiden can indicate all of these things. Not until more than halfway through the text does it become clear that Eulalia is a pulcella in the sense that “She would rather endure torture / Than lose her virginity.”** Without this knowledge, the initial labeling of the main character as a “buona pulcella”, a good girl, only implies that she has not had intercourse yer. By stating from the beginning that she is a maiden and then “Melz sostendeit les empedementz/ Qu’elle perdesse sa virginite” Prose de sainte Eulalie, lines 16-17.immediately calling attention to her beautiful body, the author actually risks presenting the saint as a prime candidate for marriage and sex. In addition, according to De virginibus velandis, her virginity has already been compromised, because in the course of visually depicting the virgin, the author has inadvertently shown her to be sipe. It would seem that Eulalia’s virginity is at an end before her story has even begun, were it not for the remainder of the sentence: bellezour anima. “She had a beautiful body, a more beautiful soul.” It should be noted that the comparison of Eulalia’s inner and external beauty, like similar passages in the Old French lives of saints Osgitha, Margaret, and Faith, places the pleasing corporal description before the praise of the vingin’s inner condition. This situates the reader in a position similar to that of the key characters and crowds of onlookers within the narrative, thereby creating an analogous relationship that will remain in place throughout the saint's passion. Like the fictional suitors, pagan governors, executioners, parents, and ‘gaping throngs, the reader’ first impression is of the virgin’s good looks, but to stop there would be to miss her most significant feature. As the story unfolds, some characters within it will see no further than the body, while others will proceed past this point to her superior inner qualities, witnessing her purity, power, and divine favor. Meanwhile, the reader is meant to observe not only the virgin, but also the secondary characters who themselves observe the virgin, and who are likewise on display. The exemplary role of these fictional figures is reinforced when those among them who possess a more complete vision, beholding the especial holiness of the94 saint, become the first to address him or her with their prayers, as the audience of the narrative is also intended to do. With the phrase “Bel avret comps, bellezour anima,” the hagiographer distinguishes the exterior and the interior, the visible body and the invisible soul, but the two are not diametrically opposed. Rather, they share a single quality ~ beauty ~ in varying degrees, so that the inside and outside are thereby assimilated. Still, beauty seems an odd choice for a common quality, since it is primarily thought of as a visible, hence superficial characteristic, and yet the exterior is here said to have a lesser degree of beauty than the interior. On the other hand, if what is meant is immaterial beauty, why would the author use such a quality to describe the virgin’s body? Should we understand that Eulalia’s body and soul do not in fact share a single quality, but rather that they are characterized by different traits that are related, but not the same? It could be argued, certainly, that the forms of the word “beautiful” are used in distinctly different ways, one referring to a visually observable state, and the other to a condition of virtuousness not to be perceived with the eye. Yet the tight construction of the line from two phrases, each beginning with a form of “bel” and each ending with its noun complement, emphasizes both the repetition of the word, and the comparative variation of it. Significantly, the first word of the poem, “buona” or “good”, was nor chosen for repetition in the second line to describe “anima”, although as a non-visual word it would clearly have been appropriate. This option was obviously available to the author, however, since the following two lines both95 begin with the same word: “voldrent’.” No, clearly the intention is to present Eulalia’s immaterial, unseen soul in terms of that same characteristic to be visually observed in her body. ‘The hagiographer’s poetically tight comparison of the virgin’s beautiful body and more beautiful soul indicates that her exterior reflects the greater beauty that is within. But if the beauty inside is to be understood as observable beauty, it can only be so through the external reflection of the body. Now, the cantiléne tells us that Eulalia is a good maiden. She presumably does not distort God’s creation (i.e. her body) with artificial ornamentation, and in fact, the text specifically states that she would not deny God “ne por or ned argent ne paramenz;” “not for gold, nor silver, nor adornments.”” Instead, she chooses the martyr’s wounds, the “better ornaments of the body,” which decorate the exterior by projecting the pure interior. Thus, the loveliness of Eulalia’s soul cannot be visually observed unless by way of her body. Her martyrdom makes evident the superior spiritual beauty that otherwise must remain unseen. Conversely, if her body is found to be beautiful, it is principally because of the cosmetic effect of virtue. Through the “ornamentation of virginity,” that which is in itself concealed visibly radiates, making her appear outwardly beautiful. Thus, what appears in the body is actually the beauty of the soul, yet the beauty of the soul can only appear through the body it has made beautiful.“ ““Voldrent la veintre li Deo inimi,J Voldrent la faire diavle servir.” Prose de sainte Eulalie, lines 3-4. Emphasis added, #0 Prose de sainte Eulalie, line 7. “This is not to say that virginity is strictly a virtue of the soul and does not involve the agency ofthe body. As I will explain in detail in Chapter Four of this dissertation, both body and soul are intrinsic to the total integrity entailed in consecrated virginity. However, even when virginity is thought of as preserved within the body, itis as hidden and unseen as the virgin’s pure soul, and likewise eraits a glow that beautfies her visible body.96 When the beauty of the soul is perceived in the beauty of the body, the viewer should have an awareness of the comparative relation between the two. The visible cannot stand in place of the invisible, because the unseen beauty is greater, and yet it is necessary to discern the far lovelier soul through that which is merely material. The beautiful body serves as a pale, but observable, indication of the virgin’s beautiful soul, even as it contains that soul. Like a veil, it both reveals and conceals, hinting at what Ties underneath, yet never fully disclosing it. Even worse, beauty may lend the body the semblance of opacity, so that from the perspective of the entranced viewer, the more beautiful soul is completely obscured. Should this happen, the onlooker will fail to really see a virgin or a martyr, instead beholding nothing more than a pretty girl. In order to truly behold the virgin martyr, the viewer (and reader/listener) must recognize her beauty as signs that must be followed to a source: the maiden’ bel corps points to her bellezour anima, which in turn points to the unnamed belisme Christus. Like Eulalia, Faith has an exterior beauty that dimly reflects the dazzling beauty within. The refraction intensifies when we learn that even her name is a reflection, for Simon explains that Jesus Christ named her Faith when he placed faith inher heart. (lines 129-130) So, when she is said to be “beautiful of face, more beautiful in faith” (“Bele de vis, de fei plus ble...” — line 20), the greater source of beauty is that which Christ has personally placed inside her. A “gemme,” she is pleasing to the eye, but the light that beautifies her face and radiates in her textual body (in her name, “Faith”) reveals the light that is in her heart and has as its source Christ the Light. Moreover, since “Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for,7 the evidence of things that appear not,” Faith's name reflects her function as jewel and as the one who harbors faith, insofar as she refracts through her substance that which is hoped for (i.e. seemingly absent) and does not appear. In the Summa theologica, Thomas Aquinas denies that the cause of all martyrdom is faith, explaining that the cause is rather the truth of faith, because “the truth of faith includes not only inward belief, but also outward profession, which is expressed not only by words, whereby one confesses the faith, but also by deeds, whereby a person shows that he has faith."*? That is, faith within a person requires her or him to manifest that faith through certain acts and behaviors (such as consecrating one’s virginity), so that s/he may have to face martyrdom on account of having orally professed the faith, or else because s/he is compelled to perform or refuse actions in accordance with faith, but in violation of secular authority. The “truth of faith,” which occasions (and is borne out through) martyrdom, is that inner faith is always reflected externally through the one who possess it, The faith-full person thus always serves as a reflector of the divine radiance. Faith, pure in her virginity, has an exceptional recepti to the Light, which flashes through the facets of her name and face, drawing the eye and directing it to the wellspring of beauty. At least, that is how the “gemme" is supposed to function. Unfortunately, jewels are very very pretty, and although it is the reflected light that makes them appear beautiful, this is not always clear to the person admiring their brilliance. They may seem to produce their own scintillating glow, as if the light itself were a property of the stones, rather than simply the capacity to receive and reflect it. At the end of the day, it is normally the gemstone that is valued, and not the light source, if an98 external source of light is even recognized at all. To commit such an error amounts to glorifying the image of goodness perceived in a created thing, yet failing to glorify the Creator who is Goodness itself. It is, in a word, idolatry. The sparkling jewel catches the eye, and as a jewel, Faith is not long in attracting the gaze of the evil persecutor Dacian. Demonstrating the truth of faith, Simon writes that it is because of Faith's resplendent reputation, which “shone forth ‘throughout the land” (line 210), that she first comes to the pagan prefect’s attention: Cele gemme luseit tant cler, ‘That jewel shone so bright, De la clarté oy parler. ‘That he heard tell of the brightness De sainte Fey la gloriuse, Of Saint Faith the glorious, De cele gemme preciuse, Of that precious jewel, Kar de li la clere renumée Because her bright renown Luseit par tute la cuntrée. , Shone throughout the land.** This means that before Dacian commands her to come into his presence, she has already made herself visible. Likewise, despite the obvious fictionalization of her vita and the possibility that the historical Fides of Agen may never even have existed, the medieval audience was to have assumed that the saint’s deeds and renown preceded and occasioned her commemoration in Latin and vernacular texts. By stressing that Faith's reputation shone so brightly as to come to the attention even of the pagans, Simon presents Faith as effulgent and eye-catching. Faith gleams and arrests attention, not as the Fathers might have feared, because of any action or dress that would have been considered unseemly in a woman, but simply by virtue of her pious character. The truth of Faith is that she has no way of “Thomas Aquinas, 22.1245, Lines 211-216. Cazelles understands this passage as a reference to Faith’s “aristocratic distinction.” (Cazelles, 50.) Although Faith indeed has the finest lineage in Agen, Ican see no basis for such a reading, since Dacian wishes to extinguish her bright renown, but obviously does not oppose her aristocratic distinction. Quite the contrary, he will attempt to use promises of courtly honor to woo her away from Christianity.99 avoiding exposure, for even without a spoken profession, her faith shines forth in her deeds and way of life. However, it is already apparent that the light of the glistening jewel is veiling the source of her light. Note that when Dacian hears of her brightness, it is imparted to the virgin, rather than to her Christian God, and it is she who is called “glorious.” It is her renown and not God’s virtue that shines forth. Faith’s reflection of divine illumination is effective to the extent that Dacian knows her to be a Christian, but since he does not believe in Christ, he proceeds as if the famed jewel gleams on her own account. Of course, it is Simon of Walsingham’s words, and not Dacian’s, that celebrate Saint Faith as a jewel, and the author clearly understands the virgin as glorious because she channels God's glory. Still, in making her a jewel, he leaves open the possibility that she will fascinate in such a way as to arouse desire and envy in those who attribute her brightness to her alone. Thus, all those who behold the virgin within the text will not perceive her as Simon does. Some never get past the ocular perception of her youth, beauty, and charm, and this is precisely the mistake of her adversary, Dacian, In answer to the imperial summons, the maiden “hardyement se mustra,” that ‘she bravely appeared”, or more literally “she bravely showed herself.” This is not, as Brigitte Cazelles suggests, a case of a delicate maiden, an embarrassed and violated victim, being dragged into public view against her will."* Rather, as Simon emphasizes, Faith's confidence in Jesus’ virtue leaves her in no fear whatsoever of the pagan tyrant, so that she does not hesitate to step forward. Later in this passage, the same reflexive verb is repeated in a slightly different way: “...se mustra la fey / Ke son seint nun aveit en sey.” (lines 245-246) The meaning of the sentence is that100 she demonstrated the faith that her name had in itself, but the syntax is anything but straightforward. It would make more sense if the verb were not reflexive, since it has as its object “Ia fey,” which is ostensibly distinct from the subject, Fey. Additionally, the disjunctive pronoun “sey” referring to her name would more commonly be used to refer to a person, or at least to a more elaborated agent. Since “sey” could be applied to either gender, and since it is no more than an emphatic variation of the reflexive pronoun “se,” the effect of the sentence is a complete identification of the virgin Faith, the faith that is within her, her name “Faith,” and the faith that is within it, What she steps forward to show, in fact, is the perfect coincidence of her name, her being, her belief system, and her defining virtue. In other words, she displays herself as metaphor. The hagiographer’s consistent punning reveals that Faith embodies and symbolizes faith. Stepping forward as a champion of Christianity, the virgin Faith also represents the Faith. She is meant to be transparent, each facet of the jewel duplicating the others. It should be impossible to isolate any part of her from the others, since they are all unified in the faith that echoes through every aspect of her being. However, since Faith presents herself in the mode of ‘metaphor, it stands that she is addressing herself to an audience that may read or ‘misread the sign she presents. To be more precise, there are multiple audiences of the fey-metaphor, each seeing somewhat differently. For example, there is the vision of Simon-the-narrator, who assimilates the superficial and transcendental beauty of his subject. On the other hand, there is Dacian who is incapable of seeing the fey in Fey. ‘When she first appears before him, he becomes speechless. Then, in a parody of what Cazelles, 57.101 the audience is meant to do, he looks at her, marvels at her beauty, and finally addresses her. The problem, of course, is that Dacian perceives only her external appearance. Between the omniscient perspective of Simon and Dacian’s lack of depth perception, there is a wide range of visions among the characters in the vita. But if the textual onlookers may fail to understand the fey-metaphor, then it is only logical to assume that the actual reader of the text may also misread her. Given this risk, one must wonder why a description of the virgin’s physical appearance is offered at all. If the figures within the text are subject to the pitfalls of voyeurism, might not some readers/listeners, too, find themselves tantalized rather than edified? Might not the saint become a cause for sin, rather than a model of piety? Is it not obvious that the details of the virgin’s beauty may prove fatal to the hagiographic enterprise, where the audience's spiritual and behavioral improvement are concerned? ‘The dangers exist, but there is really no way around them. Faith cannot help but be beautiful because of the faith that is in her. Moreover, Simon cannot portray Faith without exposing her faith, and that faith necessarily beautifies her. There is no way to admire the light in the jewel without the risk of becoming entranced by the {jewel itself, and in the same way, there can be no hagiography without the threat of idolatry and no incarnation of virtue without the disturbance posed by the particular body in which itis to be perceived. And yet, the author must accept the risk of, displaying the jewel, because many will never see the light at all unless it is intensified and refracted in the jewel. However, in order to guide his audience away from the dangers of the sinful gaze, he foregrounds the salutary way of seeing they102 must adopt. Thus, he counters Dacian’s lecherous myopia with his own perception, and as the passion continues, he privileges the vision of the virtuous Caprais. Questioned by Dacian about her name and faith, Faith responds that they are the same, but when the play of words is lost on her interrogator, she states plainly that she is a Christian. Extremely annoyed at her responses, the prefect engages dissimulation and flattery, appealing to her physical attractiveness as that which should define her choice of religion: Heu juvencele desirée, Alas, you longed-for little lass, Ke tant es bele e ascemée, Who are so beautiful and well-adorned, De ta beauté pitié en ay Tpity your beauty, E pur ceo conseil te dirray, And for that reason, I'll give you some advice: Boneire pucele acceptable, Bonny, pleasant maiden En ta beauté mut convenable, Most acceptable in your beauty, Pucele de beauté flurie, Maiden of blossoming beauty, Cesse de ceste grant folie, Cease this great foolishness, E va tantost sacrifier, And go sacrifice right away, E seinte Dyane diurer; And worship holy Diana, A li deiz fere ben honur And do proper honor to the gods, Kar ele est deuesse d’amur, Since she is the goddess of love. Crey mun conseil e li aure Trust my advice, and worship her, Kar semblable est ta nature... Because you are of a similar nature... (lines 309-324) Dacian’s repetition of the word “beauté” echoes Faiths previous reiterations of the word “fei” in an attempt to redefine her. Whereas she has identified herself with the pronouncement “Crestiene sui,” he assures her, “es bele.” The underlying message is, that her Christianity is incongruous with her loveliness. He tells her that he pities her beauty, at once reassuring her that he has her best interests at heart and menacing her with a reminder of her precarious position. Because she is pretty, she may be spared, but only if she adopts the religion that celebrates feminine beauty. He also implies103 that in her profession of Christianity, she does not pity her own beauty, for her refusal to recant will result in the destruction of her good looks through torture and execution. In suggesting that he is moved by her beauty and advising the virgin to abandon her Christian “folie,” Dacian shifts the agency of her ruin onto her own shoulders, indicating that she has the power to save her life and preserve her beauty. ‘The hagiographer does so as well, in order to present Faith as an archetypical martyr, a person who does not seek death, but who through an act of free will chooses to suffer death rather than recant that decisive declaration: “Christianus sum."* ‘The suggestion that the virgin’s faith threatens her beauty also stems from the prefect’s assumption that corporal beauty requires a sexuality that Christianity precludes. Whereas Faith’s choice of martyrdom allows her to worship Christ through imitation, Dacian prefers that she worship Diana whom, he maintains, she naturally resembles. This assertion, as well as the fallacy that Diana is the goddess of love, seems to be the invention of the Norman translator, since in the Latin vitae, Dacian merely maintains that Diana is a more suitable deity for someone of Faith's sex. The idea that Diana is more appropriate because of their shared gender i implicit in the reference to the “nature” they share, since that word in Old French can refer to the genitals. However, it is more likely that the word was intended in the general sense. Having reduced Faith to her pretty face and associating Diana with In the Summa Theologica, Thomas concedes that some may be martyrs through grace, rather ‘than will (although the later is customary), asin the case of the Holy Innocents. (2-2.124.1) Indeed, in the Middle Ages very young murder victims were often considered martyrs on the basis of their relative innocence. Nonetheless, as Patricia Healy Smith argues at length in the first chapter of her dissertation, the adamant statement “cheistianus sum” is the driving event in the passion of Late Antique child martyrs. (Patricia Healy Smith, Mariyrdom, Murder, and Magic: Child Saints and their Cults in Medieval Europe (Ann Arbor: Unviersity Microfilms International, 1993}, 12-13.)104 love (amur, not cherté), he suggests that itis the nature of a pretty woman to inspire, engage in, and represent carnal love. This view is, in fact, very much in keeping with the ideas promoted through secular French romance. In courtly literature, the imperative is that a beautiful girl ‘must love, because Nature has made her suited for this purpose. For example, in Chrétien de Troyes" Cligés, Guinevere's lady-in-waiting Soredamor disdains love, although she is charming and beautiful. In response, Love avenges himself on her for her haughtiness, shooting her with one of his darts and causing her to know the torments of ardor.”* Indeed, the language with which Dacian flatters the girl Faith borrows adjectives that would customarily be applied to a romantic heroine, and this is the role that he wishes her to assume. The prefect goes so far as to offer her generous gifts and courtly honor, if she will serve Diana, “the goddess of love,” and this he will do “pur la sue amur,” “for love of her,” or even, “for her love,” that being fleshly desire. (line 328) Although La Vie sainte Fey offers a rare case of an Old French virgin martyr legend containing no ‘unambiguous proposal of sex or marriage, the villain’s bribe certainly smacks of pandering. Moreover, given that the author and the protagonist have already established that one must look to the (invisible) name and not the (visible) body to perceive what Faith truly resembles, it is striking that Dacian is a near anagram for Diana, since service to the one certainly implies service to the other. Dacian’s marveling at Faith's girlish beauty is presented as a component of his idolatry, and by directing Faith to worship Diana and likening the two, he “© Chrétien de Troyes, Cliges, ed. Ch. Méla and O. Collet, in Chrétien de Troyes: Romans (Pais: Librairie Générale Francaise, 1994), lines 444-465,105 effectively attempts to make of her body an idol. His idolatry is the inverse of her Christianity, inasmuch as he does honor to the goddess by worshipping the statue ~ the visible tangible body — that has been built to represent her. ‘The beauté of Diana’s statue is entirely a work of artificial omamentation, and it is with this artifice that he associates the virgin’s bele vis, He compliments her using the word “ascemée,” which means “bedecked,” “ornamented,” or “decorated” (with finery, jewelry, etc.), and by extension, “adorned with talents” or “refined.”*” Because he does not perceive her virtue, he cannot recognize her beauty as the visible effect of virtue, suggesting instead (whether sincerely or intending to flatter) that it is the product of womanly artifice. Like Diana’s statue, fair Faith must be the work of human craftsmanship. Moreover, like the goddess whose nature she shares, she should reward praise of her beauty with her favor. Faith’s stunning attractiveness has literally rendered him speechless, and so it is presumably in an effort to win her favors that Dacian showers the girl with compliments. It is interesting to note that whereas Tertullian considers that a virgin’s bloom “pleads an excuse for human lust,” Simon offers no defense for Dacian. Faith is not to be seen as a pre-married maiden, brimming with the promise of the as-yet-untouched, Rather, the bloom of her perpetually dedicated virginity is but another reflection of Christ's own radiance. As a result, there is a dichotomy between Faith's Christian abstinence, which prioritizes Dictionnaire de I'ancien francais (Larousse, 1979), s.v. “acesmer, assemer” and “acest ‘The substantive variations of the verb (“acesme,” “acesmement,” and “acesmeure.”) also all refer to feminine omamentation. Insofar as the past participle can also mean “equipped for battle,” Dacian has never spoken a truer word, since Faith has prepared for their confrontation by praying to God that she ‘might vanquish His enemy and arming herself with the sign of the cross, This is clearly not the ‘meaning the pagan has in mind, and Simon of Walsingham takes the martial imagery no further. ‘Virgin martyrs rarely become fully developed milites Christthe immaterial, and Dacian’s pagan licentiousness, which solely concerns the (artificial) body. For her part, Faith refuses assimilation with Diana, She explains that idols have mouths, hands, ears, eyes, and feet, but lack the virtue and force to speak, manipulate, hear, see, or move. Repeating a commonly held belief of early and medieval Christians, she maintains that the apparent agency of pagan idols in fact ‘comes from the demons that inhabit them. By scoffing at Dacian’s advice that she worship false gods through assimilation with a false goddess, Faith also rejects allowing herself to become a puppet, an adored body incapable of self-determination. ‘The steadfast virgin is successful in her rejection of objectification in the vita, but itis debatable whether Sainte Foy escaped idolization in her cult. Her reliquary statue became increasingly ascemée with precious metals and stones, so that the glorious and powerful Jewel of Conques (having been stolen from Agen) risks assimilation to the type of idol Dacian would have Faith emulate in the legend. Ironically, the deceased Sainte Foy of the first two libri miraculorum, in contrast to the virgin of the Norman French vita, not only desires, but demands jewelry and gems from the locals and from wealthy worshippers.* Indeed, the excessive richness of her reliquary, a gold statue encrusted with gems of astounding size and number, puts one in mind of the idols Simon’s Faith categorically denounces. (Figure 2) “Miracles 16-22 and 25 of the first book and 10 of the second book record Sainte Foy's accrual of gems and precious metals through healings, visions, and miraculous punishments.107 Figure 2. Reliquary-statue of Sainte Foy, human remains, wood, gold, and precious stones, ninth and tenth centuries, Treasury of the Abbey Church of Sainte Foy, Conques, France. This problem clearly concerned Bernard of Angers, the author of the first two. books of miracles. Immediately prior to the relation of the miracles in which the saint obtains jewelry and other precious ornaments, he narrates three miracles in which the saint violently castigates those who disparage her image. In the first of these chapters, he admits to having initially seen the golden statue of Faith and the reverence paid it as idolatrous, but he has since come to see such a position as folly. He humbly explains, “Since reverence to her honors God on high, it was despicable of me to compare her statue to statues of Venus or Diana, Afterwards I was very sorry that I108 had acted so foolishly towards God’s saint." Bernard is able to celebrate the saint's desire for omamentation, because the exacted jewelry is removed from the vainglory of personal decoration and appropriated to do honor to one of the greatest of God's servants, thus doing honor to God Himself. With this premise, the desire for wealth and opulence on the part of the male monks was achieved through the demands of a female saint, displaying a covetousness and materialism that would normally be ‘condemned in women, but in this case was absolved because of the perceived holiness of the desiring woman. Throughout his two books of miracles, Bernard continues to evoke the relationship between “God and His saint,” (and one wonders whether everyone in the community did likewise), because only with this provision could he avoid making of the “gemme” a bejeweled idol. The Veil of Flames While still in this mortal body, while still living by faith, while the content of the clear interior light is still not made clear, we can, in part, still contemplate the pure truth. Bemard of Clairvaux, Sermones in Cantica Canticorum, Sermon 41:3.3 What follows depends et Jy on one’s point of view. The enraged prefect orders that a bronze bed a sort of gridiron — be brought. The girl is then stripped naked in preparation for her public torture, a ritual that may be found in nearly all Old French virgin martyr legends. (This is curious, however, since the Faith of the Latin Sheingom, 78. Amy Remensnyder discusses Bemard’s difficulty in accepting the reliquary statue as a result of the cultural differences between the writer and the peaple of Conques. Unlike the relative rustcs ofthat community, he was lterarus and given to a skepticism that he seems proud of ‘when it comes to his choices in documenting the miracles, but which here isa cause of shame. In addition, Remensnyder points out that Bernard had come from the north of France, whereas the ‘maiestas ofa saint in the form ofa full-bodied anthropomorphic statue was a feature of southem piety ‘Remensnyder, 358-361.)109 prose vitae does not suffer the humiliating exposure of nudity. The stripping of the saint also does not seem to occur in the Old French passions of male martyrs.) The girl's limbs are then stretched across the grid and a fire lit underneath. As ordered, the sergeants continue to feed the flames with oil. In short, Dacian orchestrates a public tableau in which the maiden who disdained the goddess of love is made to appear nude, stretched across a bed, her body aflame. He exposes the “exceedingly delicate, young, and tender” members to demonstrate that such a body is suited for carnal desire, and then he presents that body as literally ardent. (line 399) Like Love assailing Soredamor, Dacian punishes a refusal to love with the pains of love, at least representationally. It is important to note that although Dacian will place Faith's body on display, a publicatio intended to wreak vengeance against her and exert his own power as representative of the state, his initial purpose and the goal that eventually brings him to order her death is to render her obscure. When he first hears of Faith's bright reputation, the villain immediately wishes to extinguish it (or her?), as ifit (she?) ‘were a flame that could be put out: “Li tyranz en aveit envie, / Esteindre la volt...”*! And so he fights fire with fire, attempting to counter her bright light with amorous flames. But with her refusal to worship the goddess of love, she has effectively spurmed the hot lust of any man that might desire her (as Dacian seems to do). Neither will she herself yield to ardent sexuality, and therefore, he consigns her to a literal blaze. In Dacian’s scheme, the virgin will either burn with passion or bum © Cazelles, 52. S| _“The tyrant had a desire to extinguish iver...” (ines 217-218). The t ‘which of the two feminine antecedents Dacian wants to extinguish, “sainte Fey renumée.” is ambiguous as 10 r her “clere110 with real fire (which is made to evoke passion), but either way, her own virtuous light will be put out and rendered invisible. The fact that the tyrant does not attempt to sway Faith during her tortures indicates that he desires her suffering and death, rather than her submission and compliance. He stages her ordeal, not so that the public may simply view her in pain, but so that they may witness her erasure, and in this he is unsuccessful, since what results is not a single dead Christian, but four highly visible, professing Christians. However, the more he strives to obscure the virgin and extinguish her glowing renown, the more light she and it emit. Even after the narration of her torture by fire and death by decapitation, Simon hails Faith as “Cele gemme tant cler polie, / Cel fin or tant bien esteré.” (“That jewel so brightly polished, / That pure gold so well refined.” — lines 820-821) Failing to perceive her brilliance as that of a gemstone or of gold, Dacian seems to think that her light is attributable to a flame within her. Since he does not understand that she only reflects an exterior divine light, he does not foresee that violence will refine and burnish, rather than destroy or dull his, adversary, thereby increasing her eye-arresting shining. Her martyrdom also enhances her reflectivity, because as a martyr she is in imitatio Christi; she visually reflects Christ's suffering in her own. Nonetheless, a clear view of the virgin is not always provided, since she is, narratologically veiled. Naked and exposed as she is, Simon of Walsingham does not accord a view of her to all and sundry. Rather, he is extremely scrupulous about who AAs in most Old French virgin martyr legends, the virgin’s public tortures fail 10 Kill her, so that the exasperated tyrant has her beheaded in a less public space, not even attending himself. Faith and her companions are led away to a temple, there to choose apostasy or swift execution. There is no ‘lear indication that there was any audience at allmt actually gets to see the virgin, For example, after his initial confrontation with her, Dacian never explicitly sets eyes on her again, but only rolls his eyes in fury. Not once is he depicted as observing the erotic scene of torture he has orchestrated, and he does not even witness the execution of his opponent. ‘Then there are the onlooking pagans of Agen, crowded around the scaffold to witness the gruesome spectacle. In fact, they are not unambiguously depicted as seeing the virgin, since verbs of vision — verbs occurring in the Latin vitae ~ are conspicuously absent from the recounting of the crowd’s reaction. Instead of expressing visual witnessing, Simon refers to the proximity of the onlookers and relates their reaction to Faith's torture. Rather than titillation, they express pity and horror, focusing on the incongruence of the young gitl’s innocence with the exceptional cruelty of the violence directed against her. For them, the instrument of torture is not a bed, but a gridiron. ‘They do not perceive her “pardelicieus, jevenes ¢ tendres” limbs, but “cest chaste cors,” that chaste body. (line 428) Her innocence notwithstanding, the crowd does not speak of her as helpless. Rather, focusing on her self-sacrifice “for Jesus Christ the Son of Mary” (line 435) and echoing her statements about the impotence of the pagan gods, they convert, mimicking her devotion to “the Son of Mary.” (line 439) Obviously, I do not mean to suggest that the people crowded about the scaffold who remark on Faith's torture and are converted through it do not see her. Indeed, any casual listener or reader of Simon de Walsingham’s vita would not notice the omission of the spectators actually looking at her. Can there be conversion and mimicry without vision? Surely they see her! Yet the avoidance of relating that theynz do, coupled with their inability to see her invisible glory, points to the idea that this virgin is narratalogically veiled. The Norman hagiographer even veils Faith from the extratextual audience. For example, we do not know whether her body actually appears to the eye to be charred, or whether, as in the case of other virgin martyr legends, her flesh remains physically unaltered, a miracle unnoticed through the smoke and flame. Likewise, her torments are repeatedly generali das ineffable, and we have absolutely no picture of what she was doing on the gridiron.* For that matter, we never get as distinct a physical portrait of Faith as we would of a romance heroine: Does she have golden hair, eyes of vair, a lily-and-roses complexion, or well-spaced eyebrows, like the typical lady of courtly verse? We do not know these details, and significantly, we also are unaware of what she is wearing until we see her first wearing nothing (a sign of the sufferings of martyrdom) and then dressed in shining vestments (a sign of the glories of martyrdom), ‘Once Caprais has joined Faith on the scaffold, hung aloft while the sergeants rip his flesh, Simon’s shielding of Faith becomes even more pointed, A.T. Baker, who edited the vita for Romania notes that where the text says of Prime and Felician 'esgarderent” — “they were looking at him/her” ~ there must be an error, since the brothers behold both Faith and Caprais.** This assessment carries weight, given that, the phrase “I'esgarderent” also appears several lines earlier. Since both occur at the end of a line, the scribe could have easily copied in error. Yet, if we examine the Other virgin martyr legends typically tell what the hero activities may include writhing in pain, bleeding profusely, pray mocking her tormentors does during torture, These i preaching, singing, laughing, andsituation more closely, one must wonder why in the earlier line, the crowd of onlookers is said to be looking at Caprais alone, when at no point in the narrative are they said to view Faith. 1 would argue that, in fact, the brothers, too, behold only the male martyr. Once Caprais appears on the scaffold, his speech and his appearance become the focal point, They marvel at his virtue, through which he maintains an unyieldingly pleasant expression and continually preaches throughout his ordeal. In the end, itis he that they join in suffering, physically embracing him, while the virgin continues to burn apart from the others on her bed. It would be easy to see in this a reduction in the status of the virgin, were it not for the singular importance Simon accords her throughout the narrative, as detailed above. It would be more accurate to say that Caprais acts as a screen, shielding Faith from direct observation while projecting her suffering and beatitude through his own body. Caprais is uniquely suited to serve in this capacity, since he is the only character to truly view the virgin. This occurs under rather curious circumstances. Simon relates that Caprais and many other Christians of Agen had fled the city, not out of mere self-preservation, but in order to avoid having their vision corrupted by the pagan persecutors: Les amis Deu veer ne voleient The friends of God did not wish to see Les sacrifices k’il feseient The sacrifices they were making Al deable en despit de lui To the devil in spite of Him Ke pur lur peché mont suftri; Who suffered death for their sins; Ne voleient estre soilliez They did not wish to be sullied De lur granz deshonestez, By their great dishonesty, Ne de cele (grant) desconvenue Nor did they want to sully their vision Ne voleient soillier Ia vue... From this great mischance... (lines 465-472) “Il faudrait les esgarderent, puisqu’il est question de Foy et de Caprais Walsingham, 76n, "Simon de14 ‘The idea that the Christians fled to preserve the innocence of their vision seems to be yet another invention by Simon de Walsingham. By positing this justification for flight, Simon demonstrates his concern for the corrupting capacity of sight. The Christians avoid observing the pagans’ activity, not simply because itis offensive or shocking to them, but because their vision, and hence they themselves, are at risk of pollution, Whereas De virginibus velandis deals chiefly with Tertullian’s concern that a chaste woman might become sullied by becoming the object of an unchaste gaze, the monk Simon is much more concerned that the innocent subject of the gaze will become befouled, and thus objectified, by the wickedness s/he beholds. Strangely, although Simon makes it clear that Caprais and the other Christians flee as a way of blocking vision, once the lad has removed himself from immediate physical danger, he does turn his gaze back towards the city, the source of corrupti Ina scene that recalls the folly of Lot’s wife (but with a very different outcome!), Caprais actually establishes himself in a cave that affords him both obscurity and a privileged vantage point: Dunt il {tut}go veer poeit Whence he was able to see Quanque I’home dedenz feseit; Everything that anyone was doing within; Ses oilz vers la cité turna He turned his eyes towards the city Eas granz turmenz esgarda And looked upon the great torments Ke seinte Fey la Deu amye ‘That holy Faith, God’s sweetheart, Suffri [la] pur le fiz Marie. Bore there for the Son of Mary. Kant il Ja vit pitié en out When he saw her, he had pity for her, E des oilz tendrement plorout.. And from his eyes he tenderly wept... (lines 497-504, emphasis added) ‘When this passage is contrasted with the scenes in which others react to the public torture, it becomes clear the degree to which Simon avoided depicting anyone else inus the act of seeing Faith. Here, there is a torrent of visual vocabulary, and even the description of Caprais shedding tears from his eyes stands in sharp contrast to the depiction of the weeping Agenais, who merely have moist faces. (line 420) The variety of vision-related words and phrases also emphasizes that Caprais both looks ‘upon and sees the martyrdom taking place below. Simon offers no explanation as to why the youth is justified in surveying the goings-on of the city at this point, and one must wonder whether his gazing would not have doomed his innocence if he had caught sight of some sullying act of idolatry. Fortunately for him, rather than a pagan sacrifice, Caprais witnesses what he immediately understands to be a Christic sacrifice. Itis at this point in the story that the fugitive Christian demonstrates the reason for his privileged status as the eyewitness of Faith's martyrdom. Confronted with the unspeakable violence of the visible (for he, like the others, perceives only cruelty and not the sexual imagery entailed in the particular mode of torture), Caprais prays to God that he be shown the virtue of heaven and the burning virgin’s actual status, God grants the request, so that when Caprais next looks upon Faith, he sees a white dove descending from heaven and carrying a golden crown. The dove places the crown on the head of the virgin, and then flies about fanning her with its wings and defending her from the flames. As for the martyr herself, he sees that she is unhurt and clothed in resplendent vestments. The relation of the vision stresses that each thing Caprais beholds surpasses anything he has ever before seen “des oiz” — with his eyes. (line 532) The dove is more beautiful and whiter than any dove, summer flower, or winter snow he has ever116 seen. The crown ~ the richest he has ever looked upon — outshines the midday sun of summertime, and yet he is able to fix his gaze upon it. One may only conclude, then, that Caprais is not seeing these things with his eyes, which stands to reason, since not only does he behold splendors that were previously invisible, but he also sees details that contradict what he first perceived with his eyes. Faith is not naked, and the dazzling crown and garment that he perceives allow him to “see very well and understand” that even before her death, she has already achieved her immortal glory. (ine 555) Furthermore, she is not burned and suffering, but whole, uninjured, and even beautiful. Caprais’ view of Faith’s beauty, of course, contrasts markedly with Dacian’s, because of the difference in both the means of perception and the quality perceived. Dacian, struck by the virgin’s beauté, relates Faith's personal appearance to the material sexuality represented by Diana, because he does not perceive that her ele vis receives its loveliness from the fei plus bele that Christ has placed in her heart. Caprais, on the other hand, knows that he cannot truly behold the martyr in isolation from God’s previously unseen glory and virtue. Because she already enjoys heavenly bliss, the figure in Caprais’ vision is not simply Faith but Saint Faith. He is worthy to view “all the secrets of heaven,” (line 576) only because he asks to be shown them, and this request is only possible because he already knows that there is something more to be seen, something that cannot be captured with the eyes alone. This is confirmed when Caprais, who has rushed back into the city, preaching loudly in an effort to win his own bejeweled crown, is brought before Dacian. When questioned, Caprais proclaims that he has been baptized, and that he has loved and served Jesus since childhood. In the absence of all the believers7 who have fled Agen (and who, apparently, have not looked back), Caprais is the only catechized Christian to witness Faith's martyrdom, and is thus the only one capable of seeing the whole truth of the event. For him, seeing is fundamentally linked to doctrine, and he engages in each alternately: learning from the Church followed by an ocular vision leads to a request for learning directly from God, then a spiritual vision, and finally his teaching. Moreover, what he has seen — that the martyr experiences joy rather than suffering ~ he teaches to the untutored pagan spectators, not only orally through his preaching, but also corporally through his pleasant mien. This leads us back to the question of why the pagan onlookers, including Prime and Felician, may view the male and not the female martyr. In order to get a developed image of Faith, the reader/listener must share Caprais’ vision, for he is the true exemplar of the vita. We, the textual audience, must emulate the Christian youth, first looking to see the martyt’s suffering and then, with God’s help, looking again to behold her victorious coronation, Unless the audience seeks a vision of “la vertu del ciel,” “the virtue of heaven” (line 515), we cannot be properly said to see Saint Faith. At best, we might, like the shocked Agenais, only derive a partial perception of the martyr, understanding her innocent suffering for Christ, but failing to see the triumph of the sufferer. To do so would be to constitute her as nothing more than a vietim, if a courageous one, and the chances of falling into that trap are increased by virtue of the virgin’s youth and femininity. The impression of her girlishness may also mean that with an imperfect vision, the audience could at worst “soillier la vue,” perceiving only Dacian’s sullying tableau of a naked virgin enflamed on a bed. It is because Caprais has faith in those “things that appear not” that he may fully see both aspectsus of the martyrdom: the immolation and the glory. His vision is the polar opposite of that of Dacian, and to share the vision of one means to nullify that of the other. The prefect’s perception that Faith is sexually ripe renders impossible the spiritual vision of which Caprais is capable, or even the redemptive understanding achieved by the crowd. The virgin’s “bele vis” and her “pardelicens, jevenes e tendres membres” are themselves veils, both suggesting and concealing her “fei plus bele” and “chaste cors.” Since Dacian marvels at the loveliness and delicacy of her body, when he consigns that body to the fire, he intends the flames to highlight her nakedness, her vulnerability to sexualit Caprais* two-part vision assigns a different ‘meaning to the flames. When he first tus his eyes to the scaffold, the fires are for him symbolic of Faith's willingness to suffer for Christ, and this is also the understanding of the converting pagans. As such, the flames cover the virgin's nakedness, for what is perceived is not an ardent young gitl, but a chaste body innocently suffering cruel torments. When Caprais looks again, seeking a vision of God’s virtue, the flames are still significant, because they indicate the means by which Faith wins her crown, Yet, they are also trivialized, for with the celestial dove fanning the virgin, the fires are as harmless as dew, and their brightness i completely eclipsed by that of the blissful virgin, who is likened to a star. Thus, there is a ‘movement in perceptions from Dacian’s veil of flames, which obscure the virgin’s inner light and expose her nubile beauty, to the veil of flames that modestly conceals her potential for sexuality while revealing her courage and innocence, to Caprais’ transparent veil of flames, which must be peered through in order to truly see the martyr, corporeally tortured, but enrapt in a heavenly jouissance. The listener/reader119 will have missed the point if s/he does not —as Simon and Caprais have modeled — keep a penetrating eye on Faith, asking heaven's aid in seeing the truth of Faith, the real cause of her martyrdom, that inextinguishable shining forth of the light that she has received from Christ. With faith that there is more to be seen, it is possible to gaze upon Faith amidst the “things to be hoped for.” Only in emulating Caprais” and Simon’s example, will the believer achieve the vision necessary to address the virgin saint: See Faith. See Faith channel God’s virtue. Channel, Faith, channel God's virtue (on my behalf)! Before Dacian, Faith puns that her name is the same as her faith, referring by the latter “fey” to both her beliefs and to the Church. The idea of Faith as the Faith is in keeping with the tradition equating the Church with the Bride of Christ, and thus, the Beloved of the Song of Songs, the Virgin Mary, and the virgin in general. While ‘most medieval Christians unquestionably believed in the historical existence of the girl Fides, they might equally have used the virgin-as-Church metaphor to generate an allegorical reading of Sainte Foy's passio. Seen through this lens, her delicate members and her chaste body take on a very different meaning. Conversely, there is one way in which Faith utterly fails to be seen, even by her devoted Simon and the keenly discerning Caprais: the female martyr never succeeds as a figure for Christ. Like the Church, the virgin stands in an important relationship to Christ. Most significantly, she/it is the bride of the Bridegroom. The Church is also the body of which Christ is the head: “[God-the-Father] has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness, of him who120 fills all in all.”** ‘This would seem to point to the possibility that a virgin may function theologically and ecclesiastically as a man, except that Christ is said to be the head of the Church in the same way that a husband is the head of his wife: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.”"%° Bear in mind that Paul not only stipulates that “the head of every man is Christ,” but also that man is “the image and glory of God."*’ Therefore, Christ is the head of the virgin and the Church through woman's marital subjection, but He is the head of man through resemblance. Faith certainly understands her bodily sacrifice as imitatio Christi. When threatened by Dacian she proclaims: “Pur Jhesu Crist dei ben suffrir “For Jesus Christ I ought indeed to suffer Peines, tormenz e neis morir; Ordeals, torments, and even to die; Kant il la mort pur mei suffi When He has suffered death for me Jeo dei dunke murir pur Ii. I thank God to die for Him. Thesus Crist li nostre seigniur Jesus Christ our Lord Nasqui pur la nostre amur, ‘Was born for love of us, Pur nus fu en la croiz pené, For us He was hanged on the cross, (©) pur nos pechez a (la) mort livré; And for our sins delivered to death; Pur ceo cuveit e mut desir For that, I crave and desire much Pur sun seint nun la mort sufftir." To suffer death for His holy name.” (lines 369-378) In the chiasmic structure of Faith’s profession, she begins and ends with the notion of suffering for Christ's name. Slightly further in, she provides the justification for such suffering: He has suffered pain and death for her in particular and humanity in general (expressed in the first person pronouns “mei” and “nus”), and it is her wish to undergo torture and execution for Him. In the center of the chiasmus, the reason forI His sacrifice and hers is revealed: “amur.” But Simon stresses the loving relationship between Deu and his amye to such a degree that the mimesis in her determination to die for Him who died for her becomes lost and is never visually or symbolically expressed. In contrast, Caprais, Prime, and Felician, embracing each other during, their martyrdom, come to represent the Trinity: Adune furent treis tiuné At that time three were made one E nun de seinte trinité In the name of the holy Trinity. Adunt esteit Deu honoré Consequently, God was honored E sun seint nun glorifié, And His holy name glorified. (lines 783-784) The three suffering young men are joined under a “seint nun” belonging to God, and as a result, God's “seint nun” is magnified in both senses of the word. However, Faith, who would suffer for Jhesus Crist, for His “seint nun,” in no way achieves that name, because the witnesses to her martyrdom remark that she is suffering for Christ, ‘but do not perceive her to be suffering like Christ or as Christ. ‘Thus, the vision of Faith remains an incomplete vision. Of course, the virtue of faith depends on the notion of the play between concealment and revelation, of “the evidence of things that appear not.” As the Summa explains, “Evidence taken from the proper principles of a thing, make it apparent, whereas evidence taken from Divine authority does not make a thing apparent in itself, and such is the evidence referred to in the definition of faith.”** Faith, resting on Christian belief, suggests truth, but if truth were not veiled, faith would not exist. As La vie sainte Fey illustrates, Faith/faith cannot be successfully laid bare. There are multiple veils Graped about Faith, and that which Faith visibly demonstrates (i.e. her exterior beauty Thomas Aquinas, 2-2.4.1.and her bodily sacrifice) only veils the underlying truth (Le. the internal beauty that projects itself externally and the beatific bliss that she wins through her martyrdom). Tf the truth of faith is that faith necessitates external manifestations, it is also true that the divine truths that are the cause and object of faith resist complete unveiling. This is why faith is necessary. This is also why Faith is necessary. For as long as the light that shines through her is acknowledged to come from a far more brilliant source, the gleaming in the jewel may be admired by those whose gaze cannot encompass the sun/Son.123 Chapter 3 Evidence and Integritas: Mary, the Bride, and the Martyr ‘The Vow of the Virgin This cannot be compared to remaining simply unmarried or remaining single, because virginity is not restricted to a mere no, but contains a profound yes in the spousal order: the gift of self for love in a total and undivided manner. Pope John Paul Il, Mulieris dignitatem 6.20 Mary had always been an exceptionally good girl. When she was but a toddler, and her parents presented her as a ward to the Temple, she marched right up the steep steps without any help at all, and everyone remarked that her devotion was not that of a three-year-old, but rather of a thirty-year old. During her ensuing years living in service at the Temple, the little girl earned quite a reputation for generosity, humility, skillful needlework, and the general orderliness of her life. Her piety was simply extraordinary in one so young. So it came as a great surprise when she flatly refused the marriage arrangement that the governors of the Temple had made for her, insisting , “Say, des ma jeunesse, promis a Dieu virginite, laquelle s'il luy plaist je garderay, ne jamais homme charnellement ne congnoistray.” (“From my youth, Ihave promised my virginity to God, which if it please him I shall keep, nor never shall I know aman carnally.”)! Such is the childhood of the Virgin Mary as presented in the fourteenth-cemtury Saincte vie de Nostre Dame, a vita translated “de latin en francois” to accompany a vernacular life of Jesus, both written and richly illuminated q Millard Meiss and Elizabeth H. Beatson, eds., La Vie de nostre benoit sauveur thesuscrist & La Saincte vie de Nostre Dame translatee a la requeste de tres hault et puissant prince Tehan, duc de Berry (New York: New York University Press, 1977), 145.128 in asingle volume for Jean, the Duke of Berry.” At the time of this crisis, Mary is about to turn twelve years old the ancient and medieval age of female ripeness for ‘marriage — and has already been chosen by a rich and well-regarded man of law to wed his son. Mary has no care to follow the example of an Eve or a Sarah who — very much like her own mother — honored God by bearing children who would in their turn honor Him. Rather, in justifying her virginity to the men of the Temple, she looks to Abel who, killed in his innocent youth, gained the double-crown of virginity and martyrdom, Yet, this proto-virgin makes a problematic model for the young girl. In the first place, Mary, unlike Abel who was cut off in his prime, presumably has her entire adulthood ahead of her. More to the point, she differs from Abel in that she is female. The feminine exemplars of the Old Testament ~ Eve, Rebecca, Sarah, Esther, and so on ~ clearly lay out a plan of what a woman should wish for and achieve: mattiage and preferably childbearing. Nonetheless, Mary is unwilling to take the path that all girls have taken before her. ‘The confounded men of Istael must convene a council to decide what is to be done, for as their “bishop” points out, they should not dishonor the vow the girl has made, and yet there is no precedence for how to proceed: “Depuis que Salomon ediffia cestuy temple, pluseurs filles, nobles vierges... ont demoure ceans pour Dieu servir, mais quant elles ont este d’aage de marier ont pris toutes mariz, de quoy Nostre Seigneur prenoit singulier plaisir, et jusques a present c’est ainsi contenu. Maintenant, me semble que pour Ibid., 134. According to the editors Meiss and Beatson, the first part of the life of Jesus Christ ‘was authored by or adapted from the writing of Jean Gerson. However, the second half of that life and the succeeding life of Saint Mary were composed by an anonymous Carmelite monk, very likely Jean Golein. See Millard Meiss, “Introduction I” and Elizabeth H. Beatson, “Introduction 1,” in La Vie de rnosire benvit sauveur Ihesuscrist & La Saincie vie de Nostre Dame translatee a la requeste de tres >hault et puissant prince Tehan, duc de Berry (New York: New York University Press, 1977), xii, xX-‘Marie fault nouvelle coustume trouver, car elle dit qu'elle a a Dieu promis perpetuelle virginite.” “Since Solomon built this temple, many girls, noble virgins... have dwelt here in order to serve God, but once they were of an age to marry, they all took husbands, in which Our Lord has taken singular pleasure, and until the present time, it has gone on in that way. Now, it seems to me that because of Mary it will be necessary to find a new custom, since she says that she has promised God her perpetual virginity.” ‘What should be done with a child who, although reputed to be wise beyond her years, refuses to follow the usual course of life, to marry and to bear children of her own? ‘Young Mary presents the bishop with a novel quandary. However, the above passage indicates that what he seeks is not a way to deal with this one exception to the rule of ‘womanhood, but rather a “nouvelle coustume,” a new custom. The precocious twelve-year-old is thus posited as the originator of what would become the virgin vocation. In La saincte vie de Nostre Dame, Mary is made to anticipate the Jovinian controversy by about three centuries, arguing ~ as Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine would do, each in their own way ~ that one may better honor God through chastity than through childbirth. All saintly women are also made to copy Mary's example, as the legend retrofits her life to include forms of feminine piety that would not develop Until several centuries into the Common Era. Thus, elements of the early medieval vitae of her successors are incorporated into the late medieval life of the supposed originator, and over the course of La saincte vie, she will be styled as the prototype of the wise abbess, the virgin spouse, and the consecrated virgin, three ubiquitous figures of Latin feminine hagiography. La Saincte vie de Nostre Dame, 145.126 This last category might seem an obvious fit for the woman whose most enduring moniker evokes her sexual abstinence, but Mary did not emerge as the first dedicated virgin without considerable elaboration on the depictions of her found in Scripture. The overwhelming significance of the Virgin Birth to every generation of Christians has meant that it was never enough to simply say that Mary was a visgin. From the earliest centuries of the Church, it has been necessary to specify when and how Mary remained intact. For example, the Fifth Ecumenical Council of 553 officially instituted the dogma that Mary remained a virgin in partu,* which is to say that she did not deliver Jesus through natural parturition, but that he miraculously passed through her body like light through glass. Thus, labor and delivery, critical components of motherhood, were removed from the Virgin's relationship with her son in order to preserve the idea of her perpetual incomruption. Yet, even this miracle was not sufficient, because when it comes to virginal virtue, accidental bodily integrity does not really count. As Augustine makes perfectly clear, “in discussing virgins we do not praise their being virgins, but rather that they are virgins dedicated by devoted continence to God.”* Virginity is meaningless without a vow of perpetual dedication. If this is so, even Mary's, miraculous virginity requires an act of will, especially if she is to be regarded as the model for all subsequent holy virgins. And so, the Mary of the Saincte vie makes it clear that she never intended to wed. Mary's virginity consists of two vows, one negative and one affirmative. ‘The girl points out that her parents have pledged her to a Bugge, 142. Bugge's appendix, “The Virgin Mary: Virgin Birth and Immaculate Conception” offers an excellent summary of the development and significance of the idea of Mary's absolute purity in the Gnostic and Augustinian traditions. 2 ‘Augustine, Holy Virginity, chap. 11127 God's service, a “yes” to their Lord. Furthermore, she explains that she has personally promised God that no man shall ever touch her, and that she will never carnally know any man. This is her “no” to sexuality, or to be more precise, her “never.” ‘Mary's negative stance on sex and marriage, in addition to raising the idea that she might constitute an exception to womanhood, marks her out as unique among her people; an important program when one considers the institutional anti-Semitism of the medieval Catholic Church. Itis clear that the Saincte vie de Nostre Dame heavily invests in the Christianization of Mary, rhetorically opposing her to the “faulx Juifs” of the Temple, who although of the same faith and race as Mary and Joseph, somehow are still presented as nefarious infidels. One aspect of their unflattering characterization is that they insist on feminine sexuality. They provide no means for ‘a woman to serve God that would be an alternative to marriage and sex. In fact, they do not particularly concern themselves with Mary's relationship to God, since they have been bribed by the man of law, who wants her for his son, Of course, the charge of avariciousness against the Jews was (and is) a cliché of anti-Semitic discourse, but itis notable that the governors of the Temple, the upholders of the Law of and for the flesh, do not fundamentally differ in their priorities from the pagans of other virgin- martyr vitae. Just as Dacian urges Faith to emulate Diana (i.e. to embrace the feminine lot and thereby reap considerable financial and social gains), they attempt to sway the determined virgin to follow and benefit from the old ways. For her part, Mary, whom the vita practically presents as the first Christian, must insist on the salutary sexual renunciation that (even in married relationships) would become astaple of Christian devotion. From its earliest days, Christianity stood out from the pagan and Jewish faiths in its emphasis on “the sexual discipline of the many and the heroic self-denial of the few.” Mary's proto-Christian virginity makes her stand out as not-Jew. Her “no” to sexuality is, in effect, a “no” to her membership in the Jewish community. The vita thus defines Christianity as the religion that glorifies the new custom of virginity against the old law of sexuality embodied by the pagans and Jews. Virginity is thus upheld as a defining value of the Christian faith, allowing the new faith to set itself apart from the old faiths. In “Stabat Mater,” Julia Kristeva takes a psychoanalytic look at the Virgin Mary, noting, “The Virgin assumes her feminine denial of the other sex (of man) but overcomes him by setting up a third person: / do not conceive with you but with Him.”” The announcement that a girl has consecrated her virginity in perpetuity often takes the form of Mary’s “not with you but with Him,” and is integrally intermeshed with the declaration “chretienne sui” in the Old French vitae, In Wace’s life of Saint “Margaret of Antioch, the scene is set for the coming trial when the author tells us “Ele ama Deu et Deu ]’ama, / Trestot son cuer li adona.”* The precocious surrender of her heart is soon followed by the dedication of her virginity. To be more precise, upon hearing of the torments of Christian martyrs throughout the land, Margaret emulates and honors their self-denial by taking a vow of chastity, demonstrating yet again the link between the two types of corporal sacrifice. When the provost and persecutor Olimbrius happens upon her tending her nursemaid’s flocks, the danger of exposure d Brown, 34. : Iulia Kristeva, “Stabat Mater,” in The Portable Kristeva, ed, Kelly Oliver (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 326.129 before non-chaste eyes is revealed: “Marguerite vit, si 'ama.”? This line sets up Olimt love for Margaret as the third side in the narrative triangle, competing with the mutual love between the heroine and God cited previously. The exclusivity of that love may be judged from the fact that the virgin is not said to love anyone else, not even her nursemaid and guardian who explicitly is said to love her, and to whom. the maiden is said to be strongly attached. ‘The introduction of Olimbrius” love thus intrudes on the happy unity of the virgin and her Beloved. The provost sends his knights to ply his suit with the girl, proposing marriage if she be of noble birth and luxurious concubinage otherwi She makes no reply to them, but immediately prays to God to protect her against faltering in her total devotion to Him. ‘The knights report back to Olimbrius that she is of no use to him, “car ele croit en icel Dé / Que Jui ont en crois pené.”"” Her virginity and her Christianity are all of a piece. When Margaret is brought before the ‘Pagan provost, he interrogates her first about her lineage, and then about her beliefs. When she stoutly defends her Christianity, Olimbrius makes explicit the analogy between sexuality and pantheism on the one hand and virginity and Christianity on the other by presenting her with an ultimatum: If she refuses to honor the pagan gods, he will burn her. If she refutes her God, he will make a rich woman of her and take her to his bed. Even had Olimbrius not presented her these alternatives, they are nonetheless implied in Margaret's own vow. Her choice of virginity is an expression of her exemplary Christianity. 65-66. “She loved God and God loved her. / She gave over her heart exceedingly early.” (Wace, lines “He saw Margaret, and so did love her.” (Ibid, line 97.) '© “Because she believes in that God / Whom the Jews hung on a cross.” (Ibid. lines 125-126.)130 Note that the double-profession of Christianity and virginity that the young ‘woman has made remains secret, or at least low-key, until a challenge to one brings about the disclosure of both. In La saincte vie de Nostre Dame, Mary's vow to never know any man carnally and her understanding that she will serve God for life remain unknown until after a proposal of marriage has been made. Furthermore, the wultaneous unveiling of virginity and Christian vocation commonly occurs in the Old French vita. For example, in the lives of Agnes and Margaret, itis the maiden’s strong negative reaction to the suit of an enamored pagan that brings her clandestine Christianity to light. Similarly, in the vitae of saints Barbara, Juliana, and Christina, the heroines keep their Christianity a secret from their pagan fathers, heartless Christian-haters to a man, but when their outstanding beauty causes suitors to seek their hands in marriage, a chain of events commences such that they soon feel compelled to proclaim their faith publicly. Conversely, in the lives of Faith and Catherine of Alexandria, a widespread wave of persecution occasions the virgin’s appearing before a pagan lord as a champion of Christianity. It is only during their public confrontation that the tyrant perceives her external beauty and attempts to sway her into a sexual relationship. At some point, the virgin must publicly claim the nouvelle coustume for herself, proclaiming what she is and what she believes. It is not possible to separate the two, for her virginity is an expression of her Christianity and her Christianity the justification of her virginity. Neither can she remain silent, because in order to pursue her faith and vocation, she must exempt herself from the common lot of womanhood by refusing marriage. Moreover, her dedication to Christ necessitates that she131 willingly “out” herself when Christianity comes under fire. Attacks against her beliefs are, in fact, narratologically unavoidable since the Old French virgin is always surrounded by infidels. Assaults on her virginity are likewise unavoidable, because through the beautifying effect of her virtue, she appears thoroughly desirable. Open conflict is inevitable, ‘Thus, a marriage offer brings Mary to disclose her previously secret vow of virginity and to openly clash with the “faulx Juifs” who have raised her. Likewise, the adored daughters and coveted maidens of virgin martyr legends lead relatively peaceful lives until their pagan fathers or rulers wish them to conform to the accepted norms; to sacrifice to the gods and to sacrifice their virginity in marriage. The virgins scandalize these figures of masculine authority when they insist on participating in the nouvelle coustume. Perpetual virginity, like Christianity, represents the sweeping in of a new practice in noncompliance with ancient custom. It always brings with it a rejection of the father’s (or father figure’s) love, non-Christian values, and authority. As we shall see, the not-with-you-but-with-Him declaration may be leveled against a specific suitor or carnal love in general, but it is just as much a general rebellion against a certain notion of paternity. In defiance of her Temple guardians and the old Law, Mary builds upon the time-honored oath her parents made when they dedicated her to God’s service by adding the revolutionary idea that she will never abandon or diminish this service by taking a husband. Surprisingly, for the bishop of the Temple, it is the girl’s vow, and not her parents’, that is the more binding, because it is perpetual. Mary, however, takes both her parents’ “yes” (to God's service) and her own “never” (to sexuality)equally seriously. What gives both these vows the force of an affirmative is the volition implied in the “jay promis.” Of course, what Mary has promised, she cannot ‘guarantee, because it involves a third party: the “homme” who is not to touch her, and whom she will not know. More to the point, the girl acknowledges that she will be able to maintain her promise to God only il uy plaist,” “if it pleases Him.” By indicating that God, and not man or men, woman or women, has the ability to enforce or destroy virginity, the account in the Saincte vie emphasizes the origin of consecrated virginity in feminine will, and not power. Another critical component of the vows of the girl Mary and her parents is their indirect complement, that the promises are made “a Dieu,” and that her virginity is vowed “a Dieu.” For the concept of sacerdotal virginity, this “a Dieu" is essential, because it signals the sacrifice of self on which the profession of virginity depends. The virgin is the one who renders herself entirely (and her absolute integrity symbolizes this entirety) to God alone. In fact, the gi is reciprocal, as God grants the virgin the grace of virginity, and she in turn freely chooses to dedicate her virginity to Him (through virtue, despite Tertullian’s claims to the contrary). This reciprocity continues on a moment-by-moment basis as the virgin struggles for the rest of her life to maintain her spiritual chastity and bodily purity, and as God alternately supports and challenges her, perhaps opting to undo her virginity altogether.'! In chapter twenty-cight of The City of God, Augustine postulates that in the case of some outraged virgins, God may have permitted their rape because they were on the verge of becoming prideful. The humbling removal oftheir virginity could thus be looked upon as protecting their chastity. Herein we find two atitudes towards rape that have persisted into the present: the idea that the victim is essentially to blame and the acceptance of rape asa tool for combating haughtines133 ‘The “a Dieu” of Mary's promise also makes jt an unbreakable vow. The young girl is the first to point out that since she and her parents have made certain commitments to God, “pour ce il ne fault plus parler,” “because of this, no more ought be said.”'? The bishop agrees, admitting, “ je ne lui vouldroye cofn}tredire, car illest escript: ‘Vouete et reddite Dfomilno. ... Vouez et rendez. a Dieu ce que lui avez promis.”" Since the virgin’s oath is to God and includes the element of perpetuity found in the “jamais” (“never” in a negative statement or “forever” in an affirmation), she has entered into an ironclad commitment. For this reason, the majority of Christian writers on virginity caution against undertaking such a vow lightly. The virgin takes a tremendous gamble by making a promise that ~ even on a spiritual level — cannot be kept without grace and cannot be broken without committing a grievous sin, an offense that more or less translates to adultery against the Almighty. The Sponsa Christi and the Amie Deu You shall offer, at the nuptials of the Lamb, a new canticle, which you shall accompany on your harps; by no means such as the whole earth sings, to which it is said: “Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle, sing to the Lord all the earth,” but such as no one shall be able to sing except yourselves. Augustine, De sancta virginitate, chapter 27 If the loss of promised chastity constitutes adultery, it is because the dedication of virginity operates in the mode of spiritual nuptials. As Tertullian offhandedly points out, the consecrated virgin should not hesitate to veil because as the Bride of Christ, she is a married woman, Tertullian only once alludes to the idea La Saincte vie de Nostre Dame, 144. {do not wish to oppose her, because itis written: ‘Vouete et reddite Domino. ... Vow, and. render to God that which you have promised Him.” Ibid., 145.134 that would become the single most important strand in the signifying web of virginity: the spousal relationship of the virgin with Christ, the Bridegroom. His neglect of this concept is ironic, given that future generations of virgins were to “take the veil” precisely in token of their status as Brides of Christ. The virgin is not the only bride of Christ, however, since that epithet is also applied to Mary, the Church, and the soul, so that all four become symbolically interconnected, especially through the imagery of the Song of Songs, in which the virgin Bride seeks and discourses with her Beloved. In Virginitas, John Bugge explains that the eleventh and twelfth centuries saw a revival of interest in the Song and in Origen’s commentary on it, culminating in Bernard de Clairvaux’s famous work on the Song of Songs." In one of Saint Bernard's eighty-six mid-twelfth-century sermons on the book, he explains the significance of the bride: But why bride? Because she is the soul thirsting for God. In order to clarify for you the characteristics of the bride, I shall deal briefly with the diverse affective relationships between persons. Fear motivates a slave’s attitude to his master, gain that of wage-earner to his employer, the learner is attentive to his teacher, the son is respectful to his father, But the one who asks for a kiss, she is a lover. Among all the natural endowments of man love holds first place, especially when it is directed to God, who is the source whence it comes. No sweeter names can be found to embody that sweet interflow of affections between the Word and the soul, than bridegroom and bride.'* In the midst of this resurgence of bridal imagery, Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo shifted attention to Christ's humanity as a key factor in His sacrificial reparation of man’s guilt through original sin. Bugge points out an unintended result of the convergent trends to humanize Christ and to eroticize the soul’s relationship with Him, an outcome that had a profound effect on medieval hagiography: 4 -Bugge, 90.135 ‘The importance of this sequence of events is that it opened the way to speaking of Christ in the metaphorical terms of human sexual love. The portrayal of Jesus as the rival with other men for the affections of holy women ‘was a unique by-product of the Anselmian atonement.'° ‘Compared with Tertullian, the later Church Fathers increasingly emphasized the spiritual nuptials of virginity. By the Middle Ages, the vocation of nuns and consecrated virgins depended primarily on this analogy. With the religious developments of the twelfth century, the idea of a bridal union with Christ, always rather erotic in character, increasingly took on courtly overtones and boomed in popularity ~ at least in women’s spirituality. In La Saincte Vie de Nostre Dame, by choosing to offer her virginity to God instead of o any mortal man and insisting on this choice when a particular man is offered in marriage, Mary indicates a spousal component in their relationship. This follows — ot establishes, depending on one’s temporal perspective ~ the hagiographical commonplace in which a virgin, when courted, ambiguously states, that she has long since given herself to (or simply that she desires) a supremely rich, beautiful, and puissant Bridegroom, Thus, the marriage imagery veils even the speech of the sponsa Christi, whose initial proclamation of her love for Christ is nearly always n sunderstood by the pagans she addresses. In addition to her rejection of the advances of a suitor, the virgin’s status is established in all of the Old French legends through the title “amie Deu,” which identifies her with the bride from the Song of Songs, that dangerously erotic text that has so inspired countless generations of Christian exegetes from Origen to Teresa of Avila. Berard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs 1, wans. Kilian Walsh (Cistercian Publications: Spencer, Massachusetts, 1971), 7:2.2. we "Bugge, 83.136 Here we must take note of a significant gender asymmetry. To be labeled the “amie Deu” is not at all the same thing as to be called, like St Alexis for example, the “ume Deu,” the man of God. Male saints tend to be treated as milites Christi, female saints as sponsae Christi. The masculine terms connote servitude and fidelity, important qualities to be sure, but lacking the bond of affection that lovers or spouses share, As the abbot Pierre Abelard points out in a letter to his estranged wite the abbess Heloise, there is less honor in his being “Christ's servant” than in her being His bride. Moreover, while a figure like Saint Caprais may bear the appellation “ami Deu,” this is hardly the same, because there is no implication of a marital bond.'7 ‘That the “amie Deu” implies more than the friendship evoked in the title “ami Deu” is confirmed in a line from Clemence of Barking’s Life of Saint Catherine. Speaking of her marriage to Christ, Catherine declares, “amie sui e il amant.”'* Christ is more than her friend: he is her lover, Marriage and sexuality imply a closer, insoluble relationship, a j ining of male and female into one flesh. The idea of the “amie Deu” is in some ways more powerful than the masculine equivalents, because it indicates a bond of pure, all-encompassing love, a more intimate and binding affection. It must be pointed out that in patristic and medieval Christian doctrine, there is nothing to prevent a man from accessing the sponsa Christi bond. If as Bernard de Clairvaux maintains, the bride is the thirsting soul, and the longed-for Bridegroom is the Word, then it follows that a soul belonging to any person, male or female, can become the bride of Christ. Bernard is clear that of all the potential relationships that In positing brideship as a closer union than masculine friendship, 1 am following Bernard's assertion that the one who loves best is the one who asks for a kiss, the bride. In fact, friendship between men was considered a very serious matter and an important bond of love in the High Middle137 one may have with God, this one is most to be desired. Why then does the language of hagiography distinguish the miles Christi from the sponsa Christi and the amie Deu from the ome Deu along such strict gender lines? Bernard’s interpretation, based on Origen’s work, did impact the monastic ideal, but unfortunately, in part because of the tremendous impact of courtly love on the understanding of male-female relationships, it became increasingly difficult for men (even for male religious, but especially for the male laity) to adopt the sponsa Christi position.’ As we have seen, even Bernard's contemporary, Abelard, himself amonk, fails to conceive the potential spousal relationship between Christ and his own soul, to embrace Christ with the “feminine” affection that is both above and below reason. His personal correspondence with Heloise leaves no doubt that his former lover and wife fails to let go of her womanly relationships to Abelard, and thus has difficulty assuming the role of bride of Christ to which her vocation as nun and abbess calls her. Yet his failure to in any way conceive of himself as the sponsa Christi is more regrettable because ironically, although he has been castrated, he still operates in the position of a man, Unless he relinquish his manhood, he himself can never enjoy the closest possible bond with Christ and be, like a bride, joined with Him in love. Despite (or because of) the popularity of Bernard's beautifully moving sermons, this unmediated union of soul and Word becomes the peerless privilege of the holy woman, and especially the virgin, the one who has had no other bridegroom, Ages. Stl, rideship ideally encompasses friendship a of both body and soul to Christ. 8 Clemence of Barking, line 1360. % —Bugge, 96-10. ‘evokes in a particular way the consecration138 As privileged as the sponsa Christi may be in terms of her closeness to God, her access to masculine authority on the earthly plane is proportionately diminished, ‘Once men (with only a few exceptions) cease to pursue the spiritual marriage, the bride is no longer seen as the soul, but as the female virgin herself. Through the bridal topos, the relationship between the feminine virgo/virge and the masculine Deus/Deu assumes the symbolism of the only type of male-female sexual relationship valorized by the Church. In other words, the conceptualization of the woman who adopts the new law of Christian virginity is reinserted into the terms of the old law of matrimony. Moreover, as spouse, the virgin’s status as woman is reinforced. This is the solution to Tertullian’s problem of exceptions to the gendered binary: the virgin as bride must be subject to a masculine Bridegroom. Because she is destined for ‘marriage, the laws governing women certainly apply to her, and she is effectively excluded from masculine privilege. Therefore, within the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the consecrated virgin, like the Church itself, becomes celebrated as having Christ for a head, in the way that a woman has her husband for her head, but she is not privileged as having Christ for a head as a man does, by virtue of being in the image of God. ‘One may observe this operation at work in La saincte vie de Nostre Dame. Mary chooses for herself a nouvelle coustume, one in which she rejects matrimony and maternity, styling herself after a male exemplar (Abel) and indicating that she wishes to stay in the service of God for the remainder of her life. The governors of the Temple, however, do not accept her as an exception to the rules of womanhood, and they will certainly not allow her to serve in the capacity of priest or guardian.139 They debate what should be done, but it is clear that she must leave the Temple where the manly pursuits of the priest and the teacher take place, and that she must somehow be inserted into a traditional feminine role. Furthermore, the men of Israel never consider returning her back to her parents, Joachim and Anna, or handing her over to any of her kinsfolk, under whose roof she could act as dutiful daughter or handmaid. Instead, she is made to assume the role of wife. Thus, the bishop gathers all the marriageable male descendants of David, announcing to them the miracle by which they will determine who should assume charge of Mary: all are to take a rod, and the one whose rod flowers and issues forth a dove will be the divinely designated husband/guardian, When the extremely elderly widower Joseph reluctantly takes his diminutive, barren rod, and it immediately blossoms, a dove whiter than snow bursting forth from its end, the phallic imagery is difficult to ignore” Even so, the rod ~ verge in Middle French ~ also evokes the vierge whom Joseph is designated to wed, herself diminutive and seemingly sterile, but destined for a miraculous fecundity. Protesting that he is old enough to be her ‘great-grandfather, Joseph nevertheless takes Mary to wife, and she, in turn, becomes the spiritual leader of the other virgins of the temple, who go with her in tow to Nazareth. Mary's new position as virgin wife and proto-abbess points to the functional limitations of the bride of Christ. In the first place, she is the ward of an earthly husband, Joseph, and thus she is at once entitled to masculine protections and subject to masculine authority. Furthermore, even before He is born, she becomes completely fixated on Jesus, and after He is crucified, she spends the rest of her life in140 igrimage to sites associated with His works. She so ardently craves that her Beloved might come to her that her copious weeping provokes the Annunciatior Admittedly, Christ’s coming into the world in direct response to the yearning of his mother and amie does in fact endow her submissiveness with an extraordinary power, and I by no means wish to belittle her importance in ushering in the Christian era, Still it should be noted that she does so through a loving male-feinale relationship, and not through any institutional authority that would be exceptional in her sex. Consider Mary’s relationship to knowledge and education, At the age of twelve, this little girl, who is wise beyond her years, attempts to instruct her elders in the virtue of virginity and its superiority to marriage. Twelve is the age at which the boy Jesus teaches the learned men of the Temple, as well,” so it is probably by design that the Virgin of the Saincte vie does so first. (According to the temporality of the narrative, Christ is in this way made to imitate young Mary.) Because Jesus is male, his precocious wisdom evokes wonderment and admiration, and He is allowed to speak in the Temple for so long that His parents almost return home to Nazareth without Him. Because Mary is female, almost as soon as she has begun teaching, she is ousted from the Temple and consigned to the private sphere of Joseph’s hearth, Even though her bridal love of God endows her with clairvoyance so that she foresees the birth and ministry of Jesus, she is only allowed to teach the virgins who share her home, She cannot be both a wife and a rabbi, regardless as to whether her legal or spiritual marriage is in question. The bridal function precludes both her participation “Verge,” the word meaning rod, may also refer to the male member. La Saincie vie de Nostre Dame, 149. Lake 2.41-51M41 in and her competition with the masculine hierarchy that renders authority to the bishop. ‘Mary triumphs, however, in the feminine hierarchy that renders singular glory to the first among brides of Christ. For while it is true that any woman may aspire to be the bride of Christ, all brides are by no means equal. The sponsa Christi topos succeeds as a feminine ideal precisely because women of varying conditions may aspire to embody the figure of the bride, but each wins a different degree of glory in so doing. To be the bride of Christ means to devote oneself wholly in love to Him. The true bride of Christ, then, is the one who chooses Christ to the exclusion of all men, sometimes to the point of rejecting all representatives of maleness. Because any ‘woman may do this, the bride does not necessarily have to be a virgin. However, the virgin achieves a much higher status in comparison to the non-virginal bride, both in heaven and in the organization of the Church. Once again, itis Paul who outlines the structure to be followed by Christians, saying with respect to chastity wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows T say that itis well to remain single as Ido. But if they cannot exercise self- control, they should marry. For itis better to marry than to be aflame with passion.”> This statement is an important basis of the anti-Jovinian arguments of the Fathers that marriage is not bad, but virginity is much to be preferred. ‘The implication is that those Christians who marry do so because they lack the self-control to remain abstinent. Either they have not been graced with chastity, or they lack the virtue, the vigorous moral purpose, to dedicate themselves solely to God. Although Paul addresses a mixed audience, very likely focusing on the male members of that42 audience, his injunction was to have grave repercussions for women whose lack of self-control was a function of culture rather than character. The legal and familial restraints that compelled girls to marry at a young age meant that before they had a real chance at achieving self-determination, they were already tainted as belonging to the group found wanting in purity and fortitude. ‘The privileging of the chaste also had an inordinate impact on women, because their station in the celestial gynaeceum was chiefly determined by a single factor: sexual experience. Weinstein and Bell point out that this arrangement also had a profound impact on how the saint was remembered: For female saints but not for males, the official classification turned on sexual condition.... For women virginity was everything — once having given up het maidenhood a woman was irrevocably excluded from the select company of those who lived in Mary's image. A woman who had married might become a saint, especially if she were a widow (or a good queen), but her path to holiness was arduous, and in her saintly title she would reveal the blemish of having known the flesh.” For the female saint alone, her sexual condition became the most salient feature of het fama sanctitatis, It situated her within a hierarchy that was actually quantified in Jesus’ own words. In the parable of the sower, the scattered seeds of the gospel may fall into good soil and yield grai amounts of a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold.”> Writers on virginity regularly identify these numbers with the saints in paradise, in which virgins represent the hundredfold fruits, chaste widows the sixty, and faithful married persons the thirty. According to such a strict stratification, all other things being equal, a virgin will always receive greater glory vis-A vis a woman 1 Corinthians 7.7.9. ‘Weinstein and Bell, 87. Matthew 13.8 and Mark 4.8,43 who has ever been married. No matter what bond a woman assumes with God late in her life, the history of her sexuality always colors the spousal relationship. ‘This inequality among brides of Christ is attested in the correspondence in which Abelard, the founder of the religious house of which his estranged wife Heloise is the head, provides a monastic rule tailored for women. His directions to the abbess on the proper dress of her nuns ~ Abelard’s own De virginibus velandis ~ follows the marriage topos, but reveals that there are degrees of brideship: Their veils should not be made of silk but of dyed linen cloth, and we would have two sorts of veil, one for the virgins already consecrated by the bishop, the other for those not to be consecrated. The veils of the former should have the sign of the Cross marked on them, so that their wearers shall be shown by this to belong particularly to Christ in the integrity of their virginity, and as they are set apart from the others by their consecration, they should also be distinguished by their marking on their habit which shall act as a deterrent to any of the faithful against burning with desire for them.”° Allof the nuns of the Paraclete wear a veil in token of their spiritual nuptials. It follows, then, that even a sexually experienced woman (such as Heloise herself) may ‘occupy the bridal role, if she can focus her desire exclusively on God. However, having once experienced sex, she must now forgo the cross-clad veil of the consecrated virgin, settling for an unmarked veil that reveals her to belong to Christ, but not “particularly”, Because Abelard idemtfies the sign of the cross and not the veil as that which deters the concupiscence of the faithful, the non-virgin’s plain linen veil leaves human desire in question, failing to expressly shield the nun from human lust. By contrast, the cross of the virgin’s veil marks that she desires no man, and it serves as a signifier that no man is to desire her. Having never shared any part of herself with another, the consecrated virgin belongs “particularly to Christ,” and for Abelard and Heloise, 250.this she is distinguished with a veil that marks both her womanhood (a concession to marriage) and her virginity. ‘Obviously, there were many medieval non-virgins — widows, estranged wives, and even reformed harlots — who achieved sanctity through their successfully taking up the position of brides of Christ. Hagiographic descriptions of their lives suggest that most of the married women, at least, would have preferred virginity to having to fulfill the “marriage debt,” although one can never be sure whether their reputed horror of sex reflected their true feelings or was simply imputed to them by hagiographers eager to make them fit the sponsa Christi mold.” In conformity to this mold, it must be clear that if the holy woman in question is not a virgin, she has at the very least chosen Christ as her true love. This choice is plainly demonstrated in the Old French life of Saint Julian the Hospitaller (ca. 1286), in which the title character and his wife Clarisse perform a penance of caring for pilgrims on the road to Compostella. One stormy night, a leper they have rescued claims that he will die of cold if Clarisse does not sleep naked with him that night, abandoning her husband’s bed. After she (heartily) and Julian (hesitantly) agree to his request, they In their statistical tables of saintly profiles, Weinstcin and Bell reveal that among females, eighteen of fifty-five litle girls, twelve of fifty-eight adolescents, and twenty-one of thirty-two non- martyred adult Women were married. (123-127, 135-136) In her chapter entitled "Marriage and Domestic Proselytization,” Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg discusses medieval saints whose service 10 (Christ and the Church consisted of marrying and converting pagan kings. (177-209) Conversely, ater holy women discussed by Caroline Walker Bynum, such as Catherine of Genoa, Margery Kempe, and. Angela of Foligno , had been horrified when compelled to accept marriage and sexuality against their will and were plagued by guilt for the remainder of their lives. (Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987], 203, 206) In Old French hagiography, other than Mary, I have only come across three married women: Paula, the Roman widow and follower of Jerome, and Osgitha and Elizabeth of Hungary, both of whom were left no choice but to accept royal marriages, although Osgitha was able to retain her virginity in wedlock. The general patterns for married holy women, then, seem to be that the woman unwillingly relinquishes her virginity in obedience to her family, her husband, or the Church, or else she achieves a celibate marriage. By contrast, reformed whores,143 discover that the leper was in fact Christ in disguise.* Even in the story of a devoted married couple featuring a lady of exceptional spousal loyalty, the wife must be willing to proclaim to her husband the “not with you, but with Him,” which constitutes spiritual brideship as an exclusive self-dedication Still, there is no guarantee that the non-virgin’s spousal choice of Christ will be clear. Abelard’s correspondence demonstrates that feminine chastity is not above suspicion, especially when the woman in question is sexually experienced. To be sure, Heloise strenuously if secretly resists the bridal role, but even if she were able to transfer her affections to Christ alone, it would make little impact on the public perception of her holiness, in any event. Abelard’s Historia calamitarum reveals that in the eyes of the general public ~ the people who in a very real way determine the sanctity of the individual — the two have continued to be suspected of improper conduct, even after Abelard’s castration.” Indeed, since in the past she was exclusively Abelard’s in love, matrimony, and sex, the prospect that she could now adopt the totalizing devotion of those women who have been in all ways Christ's alone seems almost preposterous. Barring a miraculous test such as the one presented to Clarisse and Julian, the fact of a non-virgin’s sexual history leaves her forever divided, tainted, and suspect. With whom does she spend eternity? Her husband? Her Bridegroom? Both? The problem for Heloise and other non-virginal brides of Christ is that in losing their corporeal integrity, they have compromised the spotlessness of their represented in the Old French lives by Mary the Egyptian and Thais, had once enjoyed t debauchery, but never fell in love with any one man.146 spiritual chastity. For a woman, and not a man, the loss of virginity means being fundamentally breached and irreversibly unsealed. The language of virginity reveals that the female virgin is thought to possess some whole or perfect thing, located within the body and referred to through substantive metaphors. She has a “flower”, and a man may pluck it (“prendre la fleur & une fille,” “defloratio”), leaving her deflowered (“déflorée”).° American slang is particularly objectifying, imparting the virgin with a “cherry” that a man can “get”, “pop”, or “bust,” but perhaps no more offensive than Old French, in which he may “croissir les nois & une meschine” ~ crack a maiden’s nuts. As we have seen, even in the comparatively refined writing of the Church Fathers, the virgin often is described as having a treasure or jewel of some sort, of which she may certainly be despoiled. One might well ask what precisely is obtained when a virgin’s maidenhead is “taken” or why in medieval and modern French, it is principally a woman whose “pucelage” is kept or gotten.*! Ina centuries-old English ditty, a virgin proclaims, “My thing is my own, and I'll keep it fe so still, yet other young lasses may do what they will! But once the “thing” is given, taken, or obliterated, its los s irreversible, and the temporary virgin may no longer render to God her most prized treasure, that rare, untainted kernel of feminine innocence. In the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas ‘The Life of St. Julian the Hospitaller, rans. Tony Devaney Morinelli, in Medieval ‘Sourcebook: available from hitp://150.108.2.20halsall/basis/julian.huml; Internet; accessed 19 February 2003. Abelard and Heloise, 98 (Or, as in one Old French pastourelle, she may give him her “chapel a pucele,” her virgin's wreath. (Samuel N. Rosenberg, Hans Tischler, and Marie-Genevieve Grossel, eds., Chansons des Trowwéres [Pavis: Librairie Générale Frangaise, 1995}, 150.) It is tue that a man may undergo dépucelage, but this refers to his initial experience of anal sex as the one being penetrated. In other words, masculine dépucelage only exists in terms of a homosexual analogy for vaginal coitus “Thomas D'Urfey, ed., Wit and Mirth: or Pills 1o Purge Melancholy, vol.4 (London: W Pearson, 1719), 216-218.“7 (one of the few male saints for whom virginity is explicitly discussed as a significant attribute) stipulates that even if the virgin is able to regain her spiritual pudicitas, her chastity, which is the purpose of virginity, she can never, even with divine aid, recover that which is material to virginity. Moreover he suggests — and the above phrases support this idea ~ that the most essential matter of virginity is not simply an intact hymen or an unbreached vagina (which the Creator could, of course, miraculously restore), but a metaphysical pristineness. Once the woman relinguishes her virginity, like Eve and Adam having tasted forbidden fruit, she has a certain inalienable knowledge, and not even God can undo the fact of her having experienced sex.” Therefore, she can never deliver herself wholly to Christ, since she has already lost the purest part of herself, her jamais (never/ever). By contrast with the provisional virgin who is destined to surrender her “thing,” the consecrated virgin of hagiographical legend possesses an integritas, which stems from her never sharing any part of herself with any man, corporeally, spiritually, or emotionally, The integritas of the dedicated virgin destined for martyrdom does not simply reside in the body. Rather, it consumes the entirety of her body, which is in turn reduced to a beautiful reflection of her spirit. This permeating cleanness may be expressed in metonymic images associated with the virgin body. As we have already seen, Saint Faith was described as having pure limbs. She is pure to her extremiti . Also telling are the miracles in which a saint is beheaded or dismembered and milk, rather than blood, flows from the cut. Blood being that thing that circulates throughout the entire body, connecting and nourishing all parts, the image suggests that the candor and purity evoked by the white milk constitute her as ‘Thomas Aquinas, 2-2.152.3,1g an integral whole. In token of her corporal integritas, the Old French virgin martyr undergoes torments that either leave her unscathed, or give her wounds that become miraculously healed, so that she always appears fresh and intact. Likewise, there is total coincidence between her beautiful virgin body and the soul she renders up to her Bridegroom. Just as the relic and the communion wafer, the consecrated virgin is, pure and inviolate in each part, as well as in her whole self."> She is also phallic, inasmuch as she embodies an originary plenitude. It is this plenitude that she consecrates to Christ. Thi is why the virgin stands out among brides of Christ. The married woman cannot, as the virgin can, be thought to possess as wholeness she can give in dowry to the Bridegroom. The woman whose maidenhead has been taken can only pledge her love to Christ; she cannot dedicate her integritas. Her vow is therefore inferior to that of the virgin. Nevertheless, even the vow of the intact virgin is rather problematic. Let us recall the following points: First, the virgin who vows that no man shall touch her and that she will not carnally know any man cannot in fact guarantee that such will be the case, since she cannot control the will or actions of men. Secondly, the virgin may strive to preserve the virtue of virginity, but while virginity is a virtue, it cannot be achieved without the grace of God. If He does not grant the gift, the virgin’s best efforts will not enable her to retain both the purpose and the matter of virginity. Thirdly, since integritas is an all-or-nothing proposition, she must preserve both the ‘The milk also constitutes her as a figure of fecundity, as will be discussed in the following chapter. 5" Caroline Walker Bynum documents the increasing identification ofthe relic with the host in the Late Middle Ages. (255.)149 purpose and the matter of virginity. So even if the virgin avoids rape or lust, if she compromises spiritual chastity through pride, all is lost. Of course, if the essence of sacerdotal virginity is a marriage to Christ, the proud woman cannot be a proper virgin, because her pride renders her incapable of surrendering herself completely to Him. Fourthly, Satan and his minions make it their business to attack the purity of the amie Deu by any means at their disposal. And finally, any loss of corporeal integrity results in an experience that even God Himself cannot undo. In short, for as Jong as the virgin is alive, she remains a work in progress with the odds stacked against her success, Thus, the best way to ensure her virginity is for her to meet an early demise. In Medieval Misogyny, Howard Bloch observes the strong correlation between ity and martyrdom in patristic and hagiographic writing, remarking, “a certain inescapable logic of virginity, most evident in medieval hagiography, leads syllogistically to the conclusion that the only real virgin — that is, the only true virgin ~is.a dead virgin.” This is so insofar as a consecrated virgin, while living, may lapse or be violated, whereas with death, her virginity is sealed. Thus, Ambrose goes so far as to celebrate the decisiveness of Saint Pelagia and her kinswomen, who through suicide assured their virginity against the imminent danger of rape. Pelagia stabbed herself while comered by persecutors in her home. The villains, discovering that they were too late to rape her, then pursued her mother and virgin sisters, who 3 The Fathers could not conceive of true purity of the soul in the absence of a consuming love for Christ and Truth, Needless to say, on this basis, the virginity of an infidel or heretic would carry no spiritual value. John Chrysostom's De virginitate particularly insists that heretics cannot make proper virgins, in part because he did not consider the soul of a heretic to be particularly pure. (5.2) Furthermore, he considers virginity based on false religious doctrine to be more damning to the soul than the lasciviousness of the ignorant pagans. (4.1) 7 Bloch, 108.150 drowned themselves in a raging river. Ambrose stresses that even after their death, the torrent did not move their garments in such as way as to expose their chaste corpses. We can only imagine that the disappointed persecutors simply gave up and went away, leaving the bodies inviolate, for Ambrose seems to imply that death preserves both spiritual and corporal purity. *? All of the Church Fathers who counsel virgins in their writing warn that as they go through life, their virginity is in grave peril, since it may so easily be compromised Yet, in no way do any of them suggest that virginal purity may be sullied post mortem through memory or writing (which means that the hagiographical text poses no threat to the dead, sainted virgin). Far from it, she who dies physically intact and spiritually chaste receives the crown of virginity upon death and can never lose it, regardless as to what becomes of her corpse (or corpus). Jerome insists “...although God can do all things, He cannot raise up a virgin after she has fallen. He bas power, indeed, to free her from the penalty, but He has no power to crown one who has been corrupted.” Yet if this is so, it is also true that after the virgin’s coronation, the crown can never be removed. The virgin heroines of Old French vitae receive their crowns quite early (sometimes, as in the case of Faith, even before they have actually died!). Their premature deaths make it all the more probable that they never wavered in their chastity or integrity. Still the argument that the only true virgin is a dead virgin fails, to address the manner of their deaths: the vast majority of Old French virgins suffer Ambrose 3.7.33-37. In the Old French legends, the corpse of a virgin martyr frequently manifests her purity and always becomes a rallying object of the local Christian community. Conversely, never does the body ‘suffer desecration or necrophilia atthe hands of the virgin's foes. © ~.,,cum omnia deus possit, suscitare virginem non potest post ruinam, Valet quidem liberare de poena, sed non valet coronare corruptam.” (Jerome, 5.2.)151 martyrdom.*' In an age of widespread disease and vulnerability to natural disasters, martyrdom was certainly not required to ensure that the virgins died young. Why must the virgins undergo cruel and public tortures and ultimately submit to being executed? What is the link between virginity and martyrdom? Ina way, the two virtues of virginity and martyrdom seem antithetical. After all, the marfus is the one who causes Truth to be seen. Theologically, martyrdom refers to both the internal disposition to suffer for Christ and the actual manifestation of this grace through the loss of life. Thus, martyrdom provides easily discernable evidence of its own existence. Virginity also may refer to an inner disposition. But in contrast to martyrdom, the material evidence of virginity is just as hidden and elusive its purpose. La saincte vie de Nostre Dame indicates that a holy woman may even consecrate her virginity without anyone knowing, save God alone, and in fact the secret vow of a very young girl (usually around age seven) to preserve herself for Christ occurs frequently in hagiographical literature of both the legendary and documentary varieties.” However, due to the dictates of family and society that the girl either accept or reject marriage, and due to the Church's publicatio of the virgin, a public and binding profession is required in order to make virginity official, Even so, the visible taking of a vow does not resolve the problem of demonstrating the virgin’s unseen physical integrity (of which there can be no uncontestable proof), and especially her veiled spiritual chastity. ‘The problem surrounding the discernability of chastity is illustrated in Thomas Aquinas’ discussion of the rape of the virgin. Rape presents a tricky question, because a ‘The three exceptions are the transvestite monks Marine and Eustochium and, of course, the Virgin Mary.152 vaginal discharge typically occurs in the rape victim. Thomas addresses the belief that “corruption of the flesh consists chiefly in resolution of semen” (understood in this context as either a masculine or feminine emission), and that issuance of semen (a link between that which concems the soul and that which concerns the body) causes “sensible pleasure.” Following the arguments of Augustine, he maintains that even someone who has been raped with a resulting emission can retain spiritual purity, because the flesh can experience pleasure without the mind’s consent." In short, although the matter of virginity is incontrovertibly lost, the more important aspect of her pudicitia, her inner will to abstain, from venereal delights, may be preserved. Thus, spiritual continence ultimately rests on whether her soul has consented to pleasure. This emphasis on the soul and the will of the virgin extremely limits the power of others to compromise her purity, at least in the sight of God. But spiritual purity is not the same thing as virginity, and it is the latter that receives special distinction in heaven. In addition, the living deflowered bride of Christ does not escape shame on earth, of course, because once the integrity of her body has been lost, the state of her soul becomes the object of human suspicion and scrutiny. Thus, in answer to the question of whether a raped consecrated virgin (such as a nun, attacked by non-Christian invaders) may be considered to have suffered a sort of martyrdom, St. Thomas responds: ‘When a woman forfeits the integrity of the flesh, or is condemned to forfeit it under pretext of the Christian faith, it is not evident to men whether she suffers this for love of the Christian faith, or rather through contempt of Weinstein and Bell, 87. Thomas Aquinas, 2-2.152.1 and Augustine, The City of God 1.16-18. On the other hand, as Pope Leo I declared in the fifth century, the dedicated virgins of Africa who had been raped, though not to blame for their corruption, could no longer compare themselves to unpolluted virgins. (Kelly, 48 and Schulenburg, 133.) This attitude and the celebration of women who killed themselves to preserve their chastity (staunchly opposed by Augustine ~ The City of God 1.18) largely stem from the ‘dea that women who had experienced sex were to be suspected of not having maintained spiritual purity during their rape,153 chastity. Wherefore in the sight of men her testimony is not held to be sufficient, and consequently this is not martyrdom properly speaking. On the sight of God, however, Who searcheth the heart, this may be deemed worthy ofa reward..." Because the inward disposition of one who relinquishes virginity is not unambiguously discernable, she does not act as a martus, a witness, in the same way as the one who relinquishes life. Nonetheless, it is God’s perception and not man’s that ultimately determines whether chastity has been maintained. Since God alone is capable of the penetrating vision required to search the heart, he alone can correctly discern whether the virgin is truly deflowered against her will “for love of the Christian faith” or whether she has in some way wished or enjoyed the experience. If he decides that she has maintained an innocence of spirit, she may be rewarded in heaven for it, but Thomas does not specify what this reward might be. Is God capable of conferring the crown of virginity on the one who is corruptam in body, but not in spirit? Will He award the crown of martyrdom to the one whose witnessing was not clearly understood? Will she only receive the consolation prize (quite a consolation, to be sure!) of entry into paradise without either distinction? Thomas seems to suggest that the reward would not be the crown of martyrdom, because for him, death is its sine qua non. In other words, the martyr provides an unambiguous statement: “I choose death for love of God.” When the martyr is killed, there is visual, tangible evidence of the statement, and the name of God is valorized, for who would choose death and even pain if not for something of capital importance? The result is a coincidence between the sight of men and the sight of God. The virgin, by contrast, is simply incapable of making either her “Thomas Aquinas, 2-2.124.5. Additionally, Aquinas insists on death as an essential element of154 integritas ot her commitment to Christ plainly visible to men, even with a public declaration. Her only witness is God. While God is the best witness one can have to one’s virtue, the problem remains that unless others may also perceive it, His glory is not augmented. The cult of the saints and even the success of the Church depends upon the publicatio of the virtuous, the manifestation of Truth in the world. Secret and veiled, virginity does not meet this goal. So even the better brides of Christ, the ones who possess integritas, fail to escape the class of womanhood, in that for as long as they live, their dedication to Christ is always under suspicion. In theory, their superiority to the sexually experienced sponsae Christi is entirely dependent on their virginity, which provides evidence for their dedic tion to Christ alone, and confirms God’s especial gift of grace to them, But how can one even be sure of their virginity? And how can an unattested virginity either manifest the truth of their relationship with God or glorify the name of the Bridegroom? Clearly, what is required is some sort of test. Because of the obscurity of virginity, the virgins of Old French hagiography are venerated and visible as martyrs, and as such they do bring glory to Christ's name. However, in the rubrics that begin their legends, they are referred to as saints, virgins, or virgins and martyrs, but never simply martyrs. ‘This suggests that their virginity is more likely to be the virtue that the faithful will commemorate, but it is the saints’ martyrdom that raises virginity out of hiding, displaying it to inspire reverence and in some cases emulation. What makes this partnership possible is the insoluble link between the protagonist's virginity and her Christianity. Recall that the archetypical ultimatum delivered to the virgin is that she either suffer and die or that martyrdom, unless the term is used metaphorically.155 she recant and marry. As a result, her suffering and death becomes a public proof of both her love of Christ and her vowed virginity. ‘Through this deadly commitment, she succeeds in making both visible. In hagiographic romance, integritas is demonstrated when essayed. The virgin is provided with a public forum in which to manifest to all the truth of her faith and her virginity, and she is usually delighted to have such an opportunity. Her legal trial includes scenes of torture and imprisonment, alternating with sometimes elaborate verbal disputes between virgin and tormentor. Finally, she pro les the ultimate evidence of her convictions when she is executed. At every stage of this process she is enticed by her persecutor with sensual and material pleasures, but the mocking girl nonetheless persists in foregrounding her own desire (“De Deu ne voil jo departir, / Del tot me voil a li tenir."“*) by nullifying the desire of the male subject (“Ce n’est noient."** ') The carrot-and-stick of socio-sexual allurements combined with dire threats enables the virgin martyr to scoff at both the pleasures and the powers of the old law. At the culmination of her ordeal, she is thus able to satisfy any doubts about her will and the object of her desire in a single (decapitating) stroke. Alll at once she bears out the truth of her double affirmation, demonstrating herself to be both “chretienne” and “amie Deu,” thereby winning the double crown. tis this complex process of trial and self-definition that I will now trace in a text by Gautier de Coinci: La Vie madame sainte Cristine, a rather long thirteenth- century vita of a legendary virgin martyr of Lombardy. Because the chief antagonist, © “4 do not wish to part from God, / With all my might I wish to hold fast to Him.” (Wace, lines 167-168) “itis nothing at all” Such is the reply of Saimt Margaret to the pagan governor Olimbrius. (bid, line 163.)156 in The Life of Saint Christine is the git!’s own father, the vita develops and amplifies the idea that is only suggested in Mary’s conflict with the governors of the Temple: that the virgin’s role vis-2-vis Christ requires a rejection of the paternal. Although it does not make of her an exception to womanhood, the sponsa Christi function does force the virgin to defy the father's law and values, which insist on the participation ‘of women in a system that furthers the interests of men through filiation, marriage, and maternity. The legendary virgin must reject this system, because from the very beginning she is outside of it. Thus, the “not with you but with Him” pronouncement by which she defines herself as virgin is more than the substitution of a potential earthly spouse with a heavenly one or the sublimation of sexual desire. It is a dismissal of the father to whom she never really belonged. It is a declaration of her imegritas, the unity of her origin, will, and destiny in Christ.187 Chapter 4 Christian by Name and Christian by Nature: Saint Christine and the Name of the Father The Name of the Rose The root and flower of virginity is a crucified life. John Chrysostom, De virginitate 80.2 In Gautier de Coinci’s La Vie madame sainte Cristine, the story unfolds as Urban, the powerful lord of Tyre, avidly persecutes Christians throughout the land. Motivated by unbounded arrogance and a dedication to Apollo and Diana, he attacks Christ by attempting to crush all those who profess His name. In response, God grants the mighty but childless baron a daughter, Christine ~ Christian by name and Christian by nature. Despite the best efforts of Urban and his wife to raise her as a devout pagan, at the age of eleven she chooses Christ as her Bridegroom, and then embarks on a short-lived career of iconoclasm. This brings the family into open conflict, and Urban soon resorts to public tortures, all of which miraculously backfire. He suddenly dies, and is replaced by two successive imperial envoys (Dion and Julian, who will also meet untimely deaths as a result of their opposition to God and his handmaiden), and they continue the failed attempis at torture and execution. Finally, God permits his handmaid to be stabbed to death, and she enters heaven in triumph. In order to at last become fully the bride of Christ, Christine progressively replaces all human bonds with corresponding ties to God, in particular supplanting her parents As the family drama opens, the lord and lady of Tyre, sorely grieved by their sterile marriage, ardently pray to the gods for a child, In response, God grants Urban158 a daughter named Christine. The life of Christine, like that of Faith and all the other Old French virgin martyr legends, emphasizes the powerlessness of the pagan gods to aid those who blindly cling to them, so itis to be expected that Urban’s plea will not be answered by his idols. Rather, it is the God whose existence the baron denies who, in addition to having the power to grant the request, actually does so. The name of the child furthers the irony, since “Christine,” of course, contains “Christ,” the very name that Urban has suppressed through his persecutions. At this point, itis important to bear in d that Old French hagiography does not make a strong distinction between God-the-Father and God-the-Son. Dieu, who gives Christine to Urban, is the same as Jhesucrist, whose name she bears. Now, “Christine” must strike the reader as an odd name for the daughter of a lord who hates and persecutes Christians, especially when one considers that Urban credits his pagan ‘gods with her birth. In fact, Urban does not seem to have had anything to do with her naming. The sentence in which Gautier reveals her name is the same in which he says that God gave her to the couple for the glory of His own name: “por essaucier son nom’ — to exalt His name.’ It would seem then that God both engendered and named her. Moreover, he named her after Himself. Urban may delude himself that the child is his and that she was created by the gods, but to the audience of the vita, her name makes it obvious that Christ created her and that she belongs solely to Him from the moment of conception. In an elegant show of divine retribution, Urban’s prayers result in a daughter who bears the name of his chief enemy, and who, z Gautier de Coinci, La Vie de Sainte Cristie, ed. Olivier Collet (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1999) line 85.159 furthermore, will go on to do what the pagan lord himself refuses to do: glorify the name of Christ. True to form, Urban fails to recognize “Christ,” even within his own daughter's name, but Gautier does not allow the audience of his vita to make the same mistake, insisting that her name should be glossed. In a later passage about God's education of Christine, the author notes: Bien la dut adreser de sa creance fole, Car qui glose son non, ele fu sa fillole. Bien dut croistre par li sainte crestienté, ‘Car du non Shesucrist fu le sien non enté. He indeed had to redress her misguided beliefs, Since —as he who glosses her name discovers ~ she was His goddaughter. Holy Christianity indeed had to grow through her, Since onto the name of Jesus Christ, her name was grafted. (lines 123-126) The audience of the vita must gloss “Christine” in order to see “Christ” within the name. This is an important step, since Gautier indicates that the resemblance of the two names reveals the true nature of the virgin’s relationship to God. “Christ” is embedded within “Christine” and forms its root. The homophonic resemblance between the two names reveals the relation of resemblance that affiliates Christine with Christ, the father. She is his daughter, because she resembles Him as her name resembles His. Gautier characterizes “Christine” as grafted onto the name “Jesus Chris “Car du non Jhesucrist fu le sien non enté.” Grafting is a very specific mode of reproduction, Webster defines a graft as “(1) a bud, shoot, or scion of a plant inserted in a groove, slit, or the like in a stem or stock of another plant in which it continues to160 grow” and “(2) the plant resulting from such an operation; the united stock or scion.”? Grafting entails creating a union of two plants by taking a shoot from one plant and inserting it in or binding it to a second growing plant. The transplanted stock continues to grow, joined to the host organism. Christine and her name ostensibly belong to Urban’s genealogical tree. As his daughter, she is supposed to be purely his offshoot, participating in the natural growth of his family tree. But by grafting her name onto His own, Christ detours this natural growth. He has cut Christine away from Urban’s genealogical tree and bound her onto Himself, so that she will participate in the growth of the new body. The grafting of Urban’s daughter onto Jesus Christ disrupts the natural affiliation and substitutes a spiritual one. Although she seems to still issue from Urban’s tree, she is now effectively rooted in a different spiritual genealogy. She no longer stems from her pagan parents, but from Christ, with whom she has been joined in order to alter the very site of her generation.’ In order for “Christine” to be truly grafted “onto the name of Jesus Christ,” the virgin must experience a conversion, breaking free from the pagan beliefs with which Urban attempts to root her in his family traditions, and fusing herself instead with the Christian faith, How precisely her conversion takes place in the heart of a pagan family and society Gautier declines to say, since such information is not provided in his source, but he explains away the apparent lack of human intervention in her religious education by pointing out that the God who converted Saint Paul Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (New York: Random House, Inc., 1999), s.v a ‘The idea of the growth of the Church through grafting may be found in Romans 11.17-24 in which Isracl is likened to a cultivated olive tree, ‘Through disbelief, some branches may be broken off,161 could certainly have converted this girl.? Moreover, it is His duty to do so. As Christine's pagan beliefs are swept away, beliefs that are an inherent feature of, Urban's genealogical tree, she comes to realize that that tree is doomed, and that she does not belong to it. She glosses her own name and recognizes herself as a scion joined with Christ. As God instructs Christine in the tenets of the Christian faith, she is characterized as His “fillole”: Bien la dut adreser de sa creance fole, Car qui glose son non, ele fu sa fillole. Bien dut croistre par li sainte crestienté, Car du non Jhesucrist fu le sien non enté, He indeed had to redress her misguided beliefs, Since — as he who glosses her name discovers - she was His goddaughter. Holy Christianity indeed had to grow through her, Since onto the name of Jesus Christ, her name was grafted. (ines 123-126) “Fillole” means not “daughter,” as one might expect, but “goddaughter.” Why does Gautier assign her the status of goddaughter at this point? The godparent attends the baptism of the child, the ceremony at which the child is named, and in some traditions, the child’s given name includes a part of the godparent's. In fact, in Christine de Pizan’s version of the life of Saint Christine, the main character has no name until the point in the story at which Christ baptizes her, giving her His own name, and thereby performing the roles of priest and godfather. The function of the disbelievers amend their faith, they t00 may be grafted back into the rich tree. : ‘A weak analogy, to be sure, considering that Paul's conversion and Christian education required the intervention of Ananias and the brethren of Damascus (Acts 9.3-19). Gautier’s reference 10 Paul, who before becoming Christianity’s greatest champion was known as Saul of Tarsus, Christianty’s greatest persecutor, is also an unfortunate choice, because it unintentionally ‘question of why God does not simply glorify His name by converting Urban. the162 godparent is to ensure the proper Christian education of the child, to see that she will grow “par li sainte crestienté.” Thus, in Gautier’s translation, both paternal functions — that of father and that of godfather — are critical, and not fundamentally different. Crist is the father of Christine insofar as He has grafted her onto Himself, ensuring that she grows as part of His tree. This means that she must grow as a Christian, and in order to ensure this growth that proves His spiritual paternity of the girl, He acts as godfather, bringing about her conversion. Christine is His daughter, insofar as she resembles Him, and in order to reflect Him in faith, she must be His fillole, His goddaughter, the one who is converted by Him, so that she may grow as a Christian. Nonetheless, Christine’s function as daughter/goddaughter goes well beyond simply growing up with Christian beliefs. For Gautier, to truly grow up as a Christian means to participate in the growth of the Christian faith, to propagate the faith. Thus, Christine must participate in the growth of Christianity. Here, we must observe the slight ambiguity of the line “Bien dut croistre par li sainte crestienté.” Old French frequently omits the subjects of verbs, so that one generally assumes that an explicit subject remains the subject of all verbs that follow it until a different subject is identified. Following this procedure, the subject of “dut,” then would be the “ele” from the previous line, referring to Christine: “She indeed had to grow through holy Christianity.” Christine is obligated through the grafting of her name. Because she is ‘grafted onto Christ, that is the Christian faith, she must believe and behave as a Christian. Her development as a Christian is necessary in order to reflect the name of Jesus Christ, onto which her own name is grafted. However, such a translation would make “i” an article modifying the general term “sainte crestienté,” which is unlikely,163 since the appropriate definite article for a feminine object is “la.” On the other hand, Old French, which makes some use of declensions, has great flexibility in the syntactical order of terms, particularly in verse, wherein the phrasing must be arranged so as to maintain the meter and rhyme. For this reason, the subject of “dut” could be “sainte crestienté,” making “li” the object of the preposition “par”: “Holy Christianity indeed had to grow through her,”* that is, with her as the instrument and agent of its growth, Because her name is grafted onto that of Jesus Christ, she has an obligation to glorify that name by making Christianity ~ or even Christendom ~ grow. It is not enough that Christine herself converts and grows as a Christian. Once she is converted, she must convert others, because once the graft onto the Christian faith takes hold and roots itself within the host, it of necessity propagates that host. Christine as goddaughter and daughter will propagate the faith by converting others, pulling them away from their own pagan branches and joining their scions onto the name of Jesus Christ. Since the infidels in the vitae of virgins are subject to the Old Law, they reproduce through the seed, .e. sexuality. Under the New Law, grafting is the mode of propagation. In another of Gautier's metaphors, the hagiographer likens Christine toa perfect full-blown rose originating from a thorny branch. That ancient branch from which Christine seems to spring, but to which she truly does not belong, is dying and barren. Grafted onto the new and rapidly growing plant, Christine flourishes, and she will bring others to blossom in this way, as well. In a way, all Or, because both Christine and Christianity are feminine terms, “Christianity indeed had to grow through the saint,” although | am disinclined to accept this translation, because while the word. “sainte” is frequently used as an adjective, no Where else in the 3792 lines of the poem is it used as a164 ‘those who call themselves Christian bear the name of Christ, so that if Christine is successful in causing Christianity to grow, the result will be innumerable Christic offshoots that will eventually overwhelm and choke off the pagan plant, obscuring its dead thorns with blooming roses. Urban, unaware that Christine is cut off from his stock, reasonably expects that through this only child, his genealogical tree can continue to grow. To the contrary, she will cause Christ, not Urban, to grow, through the multiplication of people bearing a name that is grafted onto Christ's Finally, Christine’s name is also a graft of the graphical variety. In thirteenth- century French lyric, a chanson entee ends with an envoi that reproduces the rhymes and the last few lines of the main part of the song. “Christine” as a “non enté,” a “grafted name,” must be read as containing a variation on a theme, containing “Christ,” but spinning off slightly from that name. In truth, the names are not precisely the same since to the virgin’s has been added a suffix that is at once feminine and diminutive. By extension, we are not to confuse the two figures. Diminutive Christine can never stand as competitor to or substitute for Christ, and her correlation to Him must be weakened by her femi ity, Still, the grafted name echoes the main theme, and the audience should therefore expect that the relationship between Christ and Christine will entail a pattern of mimicry, an imitatio Christi that calls the audience to read both that which is the same (“Christ”) and that which is other (the feminine “-ine”). noun. Also, important terms such as “Escriture,” “Bglise,” and “‘chrestients” are modified elsewhere in Gantier's text. ©” Dictionnaire de Vancien francais, sv. “enter.” The expression is used by Adam de la Halle, but it may certainly be observed in numerous songs of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, most notably Villon’s “Ballade des dames du temps jadis.”165 ‘The final resonance of the chanson entee is the envoi, the address to the audience. “Christine” likewise is an address from God (its author) to the lord and lady of Tyre and their associates (who in their failure to recognize Christ cannot read the name) and to the audience of the vita (whom Gautier helps along by directing them to gloss the name). In short, we are called to see Christine as growing out of and sent forth from God: as an envoi; as the words of the Subject finding either the intended meaning or a misunderstanding in the place of the Other. In the next section I will examine how Christine, the envoi, the graft, works to liberate herself from that place whence she sprung and grow instead with Christ, so that she may propagate the name of Jesus Christ by joining others to it, as well. Rejecting Paternit “Lam no longer yours; I belong entirely to my God,” she told her father, and in her prayers she began, “My Jesus, Lam all yours and you are all mine!” And Jesus responded, “T am for you and you entirely for me.” Rudolph Bell (Holy Anorexia, 66) citing Saint Veronica Giuliani In order for Christine to hear and obey the call to propagate Christianity inherent in her name, she must not only recognize, but also choose Christ as her true father. After all, only through her will can she be constituted qua virgin and bride of Christ. Then too, she must answer the ultimatum on which the entire conflict of the narrative hinges: if she is a pagan damsel, she must choose to love her pagan father, worship his idols, and further his lineage, but if she is a Christian virgin, she must love her heavenly Father, worship Him exclusively, and proliferate His name. There can be no compromise between the two positions.166 Urban is quick to recognize in his daughter a general disregard for worldly things. This causes him to panic, for he knows that if ever she were to be exposed to Christian teaching, she would have a natural affinity to it. Failing to see in this a sign that she is Christian by nature, he begins an uphill battle to instill in her a love of his gods, When at last he learns that she has ceased to worship his idols, holding them in contempt, he despairs and pleads with her to behave. He asserts that it makes no sense to worship Christ who was powerless to prevent his own execution, when she could worship the mighty gods. Angry, that he has spoken ill of her Beloved, she responds with an outright rejection of both Urban and his gods: “Taiz te,” fait la pucele, “garde tant ne m’aville Que tu d’or en avant m’apeles mais ta fille. ‘Ne sui mie ta fille ne jamais non quier estre, ins sui fille au hault Roi, le glorieux celestre. Autre dieu n’ai que lui, nul ne doit aultre avoir.” “Hush,” said the maiden, “Mind that you not so degrade me ‘As to call me your daughter from now on. Tam not one bit your daughter, nor do I ever wish to be, Rather, Iam the daughter of the high King, the glorious, celestial. Thave no other god but Him, and no one should have any other.” (lines 695-699) At this, Urban rejoices, thinking that she is speaking of a pagan god, but he ‘wars her not to incur the wrath of the others through neglect. Christine then insists that she will only worship the Trinity. Thinking that she now means a trio of pagan ‘gods, he again wams her not to disregard the rest. She explains the concept of the Trinity to him, but “esbahiz” and “confus,” he simply fails to grasp that she is, referring to the Christian God. (line 755) Finally, the lord of Tyre decides that the best thing to ensure his daughter's pagan orthodoxy is to stage a celebration the next day in which she must make a public sacrifice, relying on deeds rather than words to167 enforce his position. Christine performs a similar gesture, communicating with him through unambiguous actions when discourse fails. During the night, she sneaks into the tower's temple and wrecks everything, casting the idols out of the window. Then, using the temple drapes, she repels to the ground, smashes the bejeweled golden idols to bits, rounds everything up, and donates it to the local Christian community, finally scaling the tower and returning to bed. With her harsh words and violent gestures, Christine at once rejects Urban and the gods that are so many extensions of himself. Urban is not simply her putative father; he is the ruler of Tyre. His law suppresses Christianity and requires sacrifice to the gods. Therefore, while he asserts the might of Zeus, Apollo, and Diana over the helplessness of Jesus Christ, what is really at stake is his own authority to dictate where power should be recognized. Add to that the fact that the idols were crafted on his orders and financed from his coffers, and it is apparent that Christine’s iconoclasm strikes Urban personally. Even worse, it undermines his authority as lord, How can he claim to wield power over the general population, if he cannot even enforce the law and a respect for his property within his own family? Christine’s attack also puts into question Urban's paternity. She does not believe what he believes, value what he values, or love what he loves. Neither does she accept his parental authority or love. On the contrary, she regularly addresses God as “Pere.” Christine’s paternal choice is also evident in her relationship to food. In Holy Feast and Holy Fast, Caroline Walker Bynum points out that the fasting and food donation employed by actual late medieval holy women may be seen as a rejection of family, and particularly of parents: “To refuse commensality is both to refuse the168 ‘meal as symbol of familial bond and to refuse the most basic support that a father’s: money and a mother’s household skill can provide: food.” Rudolph Bell's Holy Anorexia, although a more psychoanalytic approach to the inedia of female religious, ‘blames the father as the primary instigator of a saint’s anorexia. Bell is careful to draw a distinction between the anorexia nervosa of modern girls (characterized by an inordinate desire for thinness promoted through the media) and the holy anorexia of medieval female saints (characterized by an inordinate desire for holiness promoted through the Church), in large part because of the riskiness of applying a psychiatric diagnosis to subjects about whom there is insufficient historical and neurological evidence, subjects who furthermore may not be analyzed or treated in therapy. ‘Nonetheless, he points out strong parallels between the two types of anorexia: Both types of anorexics tend to be inwardly insecure and superficially pleasant girls, who are at first somewhat pampered and not taken too seriously. They begin a struggle to achieve a societal ideal, a deadly contest in which they refuse nourishment, thereby outstripping the self-control and defying the authority of those whose approval they ‘once sought (such as parents). As the anorexia progresses from a willful rebellion to a veritable psychosomatic illness, they revel in their self-mastery and enter an extended period of abundant energy coupled with denial about the seriousness of their condition, and may at last die as a result of years of austerities.* Bell sees in the hagiographical accounts of Italian holy women a pattern in which the childhood happiness of a seemingly dutiful girl becomes disrupted by the marriage planning of Bynum, 223 Rudolph M. Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985), 17-20. See also the page 181 of the epilogue by William N. Davis, a clinical psychotherapist and the then Executive Director of the Cornell Center for the Study of Anorexia and Bulimia.169 her father, who suddenly takes a strong role in her during adolescence. The girl is in fact quite headstrong, and she begins a contest of wills against her father, and then against a series of male religious with authority over her, using her direct relationship with God along with her refusal of nourishment as weapons in the struggle.” Both Bynum and Bell give numerous examples of holy women whose primary sustenance comes directly from God, either in the form of the Eucharist or through some miraculous feeding. Despite the fact that the highly fictionalized French legends of the High Middle Ages differ markedly in their presentations of feminine sanctity from the contemporary Latin vitae of holy women of that period, La Vie de sainte Cristine does include this pattern of refusing food as a means of waging war against the father. ‘When Urban first begins to observe that his daughter is straying from the religion of his forefathers, he has her enclosed in a tower with twelve devoutly pagan ladies-in- waiting. (The apparent parallel to Christ and His twelve disciples goes no further, however, since Christine’s attendants fear Urban and thus fail to follow their mistress in her faith.) The tower is something of a gilded cage, a luxurious masterwork of gold and gems filled with dazzling idols, presented to Christine as a place where she need do nothing but worship the gods and enjoy a life of leisure. Sheltered and doted ‘upon, winning everyone with her beauty and sweet disposition while she suppresses a deep and hidden turmoil, she fits the description of a holy (and nervous) anorectic. In fact, at the same time that she stops sacrificing to the idols, she also declines for over ‘a week to eat or drink the food provided by her father. Her refusal of nourishment is her penance to Christ for having worshipped the gods in the past, a way of cleansing Thid., 56-57,170 herself of her association with Urban (the false father) and his false idols. He will later retaliate by throwing her into prison and starving her in a failed attempt to remind her that he is her source of nourishment, the one on whose good will her life depends. Of course, this is not so, and unlike the holy anorectics of the late Middle Ages, Christine suffers no ill effects of starvation. Rather, she is sustained by Christ, her true father, through the agency of a nurturing angel: “Cristine,” fait [Ii] ange, “de sa divine table ‘Trenvoie le filz Dieu du pain esperitable. Veiie a ta jeiine et ta contricion. Tien, si t'en desjeiine par tel condicion Que jamais n’aras fain si .c.m. ans vivoies.” ‘Christine,” said the angel, “from His divine table The Son of God sends you celestial bread. He has seen your fast and your contrition. Take, yea break your fast with it with this condition: ‘That you will never be hungry, should you live a hundred thousand years.” (lines 857-861) Although the bread is from Christ and not explicitly said to be Christ, the eucharistic parallels are hard to ignore. In the first place, the feeding does not take place until after a rite that mimics medieval confirmation, in which the angel declares Christine Well instructed and marks her with the sign of the cross three times with his right hand.'° She receives the bread when the (male) angel actually places it in her mouth without her handling it. Echoing descriptions of communions in the visions of contemporary mystics, Gautier notes that the bread was whiter than milk or nuts and immeasurably sweeter than honey. From this point on, Christine never suffers hunger For a description of medieval confirmation, see Muriel Laharie, images et réalités,” in Autour de I’Enfance, eds. (Biarritz: Atlantica, 1999), 19-20. Enfant au Moyen Age: velyne Berriot-Salvadore and Isabelle Pébay-Ciotesm again and can refuse all material support from her father. In fact, it is immediately after this scene that she destroys his idols, distributing their priceless components to his enemi In the process, she demonstrates that she is not bound to remain within the confines of the home he has provided for her, either. Let us recall that Christine has demonstrated a disdain for material comforts, and Urban has responded by surrounding her with them. In the tower, everything she sees or touches asserts the dominion of his will over hers, but his ploy to control her cannot work, because his power is based on the very material wealth she devalorizes. By refusing the most basic thing he has supplied, her very sustenance, she denies the life-giving power of his wealth and rejects her dependence on and subjection to him as provider. Furthermore, she assumes command over her body, the one material thing over which she has any control. To eat her father’s food is to take into herself a symbol of his power. It is to swallow her obligation to him in recognition of the fact that he has willed her to live. As his wealth becomes a part of her through ingestion, she becomes assimilated to his possessions, for through his food he builds her, just as if he were having an idol constructed of his gold. However, once Christine has emptied herself of all that is Urban’s through a weeklong hunger strike, nothing of his, will ever infiltrate her again. Christine's refusal to eat parallels her refusal of sexual she is, in the words of the Song of Songs, a garden enclosed, and her integritas denies entry to anyone but Christ alone. When He does penetrate her through the celestial bread, He feeds her spirit and sustains her body through spiritual rather than material means, and this, nourishment frees her of dependence on matter altogether. Her life no longer depends172 on accepting into her body that which she has always disdained. To the contrary, she now carries sealed within her a gift from her own Beloved. If this scene is truly ‘meant to represent a communion, the gift is the bread of life, Christ's own body. The sequence of events also offers another possibility: the bread may be the gift of martyrdom. The moment of Christine's ingestion of the “pain esperitable” directly precedes that in which she destroys the idols, symbolically rejecting her father and his power. It is this act that catapults her into the public arena of the martus, the forum wherein she must disavow her subjection to Urban (against whom she is sealed) and demonstrate her filiation from Christ (through and with whom she has been filled). Christine's denial of her false father additionally includes a refusal to allow him to provide for her a husband, a figure who would of course be an extension of Urban himself. ‘This rejection takes place not long afier she has been consigned to the tower, for despite Christine’s seclusion, her reputed beauty and intelligence soon bring a crowd of would-be grooms. At the point when Urban sounds out his daughter on the topic of marriage, she has not yet purged herself of her father nor fully realized an exclusive relationship with God, but she has already chosen Christ as her Bridegroom. In an effort to preserve her virginity without showing her hand, she severely upbraids her father, observing: Cuer avez desvoig et de sens esbari Quant 2 si jeusne enfant volez doner mari. Fors que moi toute seule filz ne fille n’avez, Encor n’ai mie xj ans, de verté Ie savez. ‘Trop sui jeusne et petite por tel chose embracier. Trop me volés, beau pere, d’entor vous tost chacier! Son enfant n’aime mie qui si tost s°en descombre. Your heart is led astray and your sense confounded When you wish to give a husband to so young a child.173 You have no son or daughter except for me alone, I'm not even in my eleventh year yet; you know it's true. Tam too young and little to embrace such a thing. Dear Father, you wish too much to banish me early from your presence! He who divests himself so early does not love his child one bit. (lines 319-325) ‘The language of love veils the beginnings of the father-daughter struggle. and this is true on both sides. For example, when Urban imprisons Christine in his tower of earthly delights, he does so in order to ensure his control over all aspects of her life. ‘Yet, he explains to her that itis a gift of his immeasurable love, for she is his daughter and his lady, his comfort and his life, his joy and his pleasure. (lines 216-217) And so, in an effort to exert her own control in the choice of her husband, she now sweet- talks Urban, seeming to coo, “not with them, Daddy, but with you.” In accusing, Urban of not loving her, she engages his affection towards her own ends: she obtains the freedom to grant her love to Christ alone. In saying that he, in giving her to another man rather than keeping her for himself, wishes to banish her from his presence, she banishes from her presence the husband who would augment Urban’s ‘own authority. Given that a husband is the key to his progeny, Christine’s rejection of marriage constitutes a “no” to Urban’s future, as well as a “no” to the type of motherhood represented by the lady of Tyre, the woman who bore her. Unlike most Old French hagiographic legends, Gautier de Coinci’s Vie de sainte Cristine also features a developed relationship between the virgin and her mother. Indeed, in her redaction of the vita in the Livre de la Cité des Dames, Christine de Pizan, departing from the Latin tradition, makes no mention at all of the protagonist's mother. In Gautier’s version, the unnamed lady of Tyre takes part in the14 prayers to the gods for the birth of a child, and she frequently visits Christine in the tower, but has no dialogue until after open conflict has broken out between her husband and child. When she learns of her daughter’s iconoclastic rampage and her subsequent beating and imprisonment, the lady rushes off to the dungeon where she falls at Christine’s feet, fainting, disfiguring herself, and begging her child to see reason. Notably, she pleads on behalf of her heartsick husband. Now that Christine has disavowed Urban’s paternity, dismissed the potential grooms he might choose, rejected his material provisions for her, and destroyed his idols, the virgin must confront her foil. The mother has accepted marital subjection from the lord of Tyre, enabled him to have progeny, and supported the authority of his rule and religion, and she now hopes to convince her daughter to do the same. The lady of Tyre naturally wishes Christine to mend the rift in the family. She asks her to recognize her father’s love and authority, but on a more general note, she should participate in the greater family structure from which Urban’s power and wealth are derived, This means that she must worship his gods, which have always been honored in their family. As an only child, she should also accept her role as sole heir to the family property, the accumulated wealth of many generations: “Des hhoneurs te soviegne et des [biens] qui t'atendent. / Les grans terres ton pere qui en tans lius s’estendent.,.” (“Remember the honors and the goods that await you. / Your father’s vast lands that stretch out in all direction: lines 1303-1304) The distraught lady implores her daughter to behave, graphically reminding her of the corporal relationship that binds mother and child: Aies pitié de moi qui sui ta tenre mere (Qui tant t’aim tenrement et amerai tous tans175 Com cele qu’alaitai et portai en mes flans. Fille, voi cy les costes que ix mois te porterent Et les lasses mameles que ta bouche alaiterent: Fille, aies en pitié por la tres grant dolor Et por la grant destresse que je souffri le jor Que de ces las de flans a grant dolor issis. Have pity on me, your tender mother, Who loves you so tenderly and will love you always As the one whom I nursed and carried in my side: Daughter, see here the sides that carried you for nine months And the miserable breasts that gave milk to your mouth: Daughter, have pity for the very great pain And for the great distress that I suffered on the day That you issued forth in great pain from these miserable sides. (lines 1242-1249) Over and over again, she swoons, and then regaining consciousness, she rips her own. clothing, beats her chest, and scratches herself until she bleeds. The “grant destresse” she suffered in childbirth is echoed in this dolorous frenzy to win back her daughter, and the latter seems just as involuntary as labor contractions. As if undergoing a second birth, Christine must now figuratively break free of her mother, while the wretched woman faints from the pain. She calls on the aid of the Holy Spirit to assist her in doing so. While Christine has little tolerance for her father’s idolatry and no respect for either his authority or his love, her mother's entreaties somewhat weaken her pious resolve. Perhaps the virgin finds it easier to break the paternal bond with Urban because paternity by its nature is an abstraction. Ina world without genetic testing, paternity is evidenced through the resemblance of the father and child, and it is made official through the sharing of property and above all the granting of the paternal family name. Christine has already demonstrated that it is Christ and not Urban from whom she derives her nature, her sustenance, and her name, Maternity, on the other hand, requires no other confirmation than the very real176 evidence of childbirth. Thus, Christine’s mother presents her own body as the material proof of the bond they share. Despite her initial sympathy for her mother, Christine manages to counter the material truth of the maternal body and the substantial offer of her parents’ entire estate by focusing on language, by refusing to see and read the physical body her mother persists in showing her, opting instead to focus on the textual body the lady also presents. Her mother’s words are devils, honeyed but venomous weapons, because they would lead her to abandon her faith. Mais consentir nel vieult le hault roi Jhesucrist ‘De cui non le mien est contrefaiz et escriz. Mon non ensuit le sien, et je si l'ensuivrai ‘Que de pere et de mere por lui me consuvrai Et d’umain heritage, dont les chaitis s’eritent Qui por l'aise du cors les ames deseritent. Por rien que vos diés ne serai engigniee, Ne croi c’onques eiist en toute no ligniee Dame ne damoisele, pucele ne meschine Qui fust onques nommee n’apelee Cristine. But to consent — the high king Jesus Christ does not wish it From whose name mine is fashioned and written, My name follows His, and I will follow Him so ‘That for Him I will deprive myself of father and mother And human inheritance, which the weak inherit ‘Who desert their souls for the comfort of their bodies. For nothing that you say will I be seduced. I do not believe that there was ever in our entire lineage A lady or damsel, a maiden or lass Who was ever named or called Christine. (lines 1321-1330) Her name carries a directive to follow Christ, and she makes explicit the idea that in order to do so, she must forego all human ties and possessions. This attitude is, of course, a commonplace in Christian devotion, stemming from the pronouncement in the Gospels: “And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father orm mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.”"! It enables Christine finally to put a wall between herself and the woman who gave birth to her. It also enables her to refuse for herself the corporeal maternity that her mother represents and even dramatizes before her. Christine refuses to participate in the lignice, The “ligniee” of which Christine speaks depends on multiple powerless, painful maternal bodies. When she says that she will not be “engigniee,” she uses a word that can equally refer to seduction in a sexual sense. She will not, like her mother before her, accept a husband and render up her body for the creation and nurture of the next generation. She will not inherit the accumulated estate of, countless ancestors, in part because she opposes material comforts as antithetical to Cristian rigor, but also because her acceptance of the role of heiress would entail a responsibility to marry and procreate, thereby preserving and passing on the family’s property and position. Christine denies her mother, and in so doing, she refuses in principle the motherhood that makes possible the ligniee of the father. Maternity sustains the “umain heritage.” the “human inheritance” through which the father derives power, in so far as she provides him children (themselves a sort of umain heritage), and to these will pass his honeurs and his biens. In feudal society, these entitlements, his honors and goods, are both directly related to his family name. The name “Urban, Lord of Tyre” designates who he is, from what forefathers he is descended, what authority he wields, and what possessions he holds. In order to continue the lineage that provides him with power and wealth, his wife must bear his heir, who in turn will bear an heir, ‘Matthew 19.29, See also Mark 10,29-30 and Luke 18.29-30,178 and so forth, always ensuring that his honeurs and biens are connected with his name. Thus, when his wife provides him with an heir, Christine becomes for him the most prized among his many treasures, so much so that he keeps her in a gilded box for fear of losing her. Still, as much as Urban prizes her for her innate qualities (beauty, courtesy, and rarity insofar as she has no siblings), it is above all her potential ‘maternity that gives her worth, The umain heritage that only the weak inherit (and who in the narrative is more weak than the mother?) is not ultimately meant to pass to her, but to pass through her to another, when she provides Urban with a son-in-law, as well as — and this would be his greatest treasure ~ a male descendent. By this point in the story, Christine recognizes herself as a scion removed from Urban’s genealogical tree. She does so by focusing on the textual production, in which “Christine” is born of “Christ,” instead of the bodily reproduction, through which she has issued forth from her mother’s sides. As her name follows Christ's, she will follow Him, and this has serious repercussions for her anxious mother. In the first place, since she bears the name of Christ, she does not bear ~ and therefore cannot pass on as umain heritage ~ any name belonging to Urban. Secondly, since she will follow Christ, she will also emulate his mode of propagation (grafting) in place of the sexuality through which her mother has reproduced and her father has attempted to extend his own honeurs and biens. Christine’s name is also key, because it is what sets her apart, not only from her parents, but also from her entire ancestry. ‘The names of the women in the ligniee establish a line of succession and a network of family ties from which Christine is, excluded. Since she says that she shares her name with no women in the family179 indicating that a girl’s given name comes under the maternal and not the paternal sphere of influence), but that it is fashioned from Christ’s, she essentially places her God in the position of feminine progenitor - the mother. Thus, by the end of the prison visit scene, Christine effectively replaces her mother, just as she has done her father, substituting in the lady’s place Christ, the true source of her being and name. |? The mother’s insistence that Christine straighten up so that she can take advantage of the honeurs and biens due her through her lineage has backfired, because “Christine” does not appear elsewhere in the ligniee. When her daughter points out the absence of the name, the dejected lady must admit, “Non voir, ma douce fille, onc parler n’en of”: “No, forsooth, my sweet daughter, Ihave never heard mention of it.” (Line 1331) The girl rejoi s, because she sees, as her mother apparently does not, that she cannot, bbe the “sweet daughter” of a woman who is part of a pagan ligniee, wherein there is no line joining her name with another. ‘There are no other Christines. There are no other Christians. There are also no other virgins. Martyrdom, Marriage, and Motherhood ‘What a hateful loss and grievous misfortune if you had abandoned yourself to the defilement of carnal pleasures only to bear in suffering a few children for the world, when now you are delivered in exultation of numerous progeny for heaven! Nor would you have been more than a woman, whereas now you rise even above men, and have turned the curse of Eve into the blessing of Mary. Pierre Abelard to Heloise (Letter 4) "In act, the lady never reappears in the narrative, and even after Urban's death, there is no ‘mention of what became of his wife.180 Christine’ ever” to marriage and motherhood within Urban’s ligniee is inseparable from her “profound yes in the spousal order,” clearing the way for a type of wedlock and fecundity that she can only achieve through her virginity and martyrdom. Though in veiled language, she announces her choice of husband when she rejects the crowd of noble suitors who have come to ask for her hand. Claiming that she does not wish to lie, she tells Urban that she will only consent to wed a particular peerless King. When her father unwi \gly encourages her to engage in the plain speech he will come to rue, she elaborates that her beloved King is the Lord of all creation. Urban rejoices, duped into believing that she is referring to Zeus, when of course she has already given herself to Christ. In her all-consuming relationship with Christ, in addition to being His daughter and goddaughter, she is “s' especial amie,” (“His special friend” — line 1994), and He refers to her as “ma douce amie” (“my sweet friend” — line 3531) and tells her “m'amie iez parfaite.” (“You are my perfect friend.” ~ line 1936). The English translations of these phrases provided here fail to encompass the full implication that Christine is God's friend, but also His sweetheart or His beloved, one might go so far as to say His lover. Of course, she is also His bride, and He her espous. Berard argues that of all possible bonds one can have with God, this is most to be desired: “No sweeter names can be found to embody that sweet interflow of affections between the Word and the soul, than bridegroom and bride.”"* Theirs is a dynamic relationship, not simply an John Paul Il, Apostolic Letter Mulicris Dignitatem of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul I on the Dignity and Vocation of Women on the Occasion of the Marian Year (Washington, D.C.: Office of Publishing and Promotion Services, U.S. Catholic Conference, 1988), 6.20 \¢ Bemard of Clairvaux, 7:2.2.Isl exchange, but a constant interflow of love. Gautier stresses this reciprocal and exclusionary interflow between Christine and Christ: Envers lui eut le cuer si aimable et tenre C’onques ne roi ne conte a baron ne volt penre; Et I tant l'aama qu’Tl ne la volt laissier A nul home vivant ne vainere ne plaissier. Her heart was so kind and tender towards Him ‘That she never wished to take king nor count as her lord; And He loved her so, that He did not wish to allow Any living man to vanquish or subdue her. (lines 129-132) ‘The exclusion of the unwanted male is so strong in this excerpt that it is possible to only see the “no” and not the “yes” the passage contains, There is a reciprocal love between Christ and Christine, a tenderness so consuming that it leaves no room for any other. This back-and-forth flow of affections, because it excludes all men as potential husbands, may seem to foreclose the possibility of motherhood for Christine, Yet, itis in itself a type of intercourse superior to that which might be achieved through the flesh. The interflow of love between bride and Bridegroom ‘grants Christine a fertility that not only presents an alternative to her mother’s limited fecundity, but even surpasses it. Sacerdotal virginity, tracing its roots back to Marian and Christic virginity, always entails the idea of fecundity. One of the key tenets of the Jovinian error, against which Jerome and Augustian among others fought so vociferously, was that, ‘marriage was a holier state than virginity, because only through marriage could one honorably give birth to new generations of Christians.'* In this line of thinking, 15 Bearing always in mind that there are no extant copies of Jovinianus’ writings, forcing ‘scholars to accept the claims that his detractors made about his beliefs. Jerome systematically lists and refutes the major points and arguments of his adversary’s heresy, sometimes quoting him directly 50182, virginity is a death wish, because if adopted universally, it forecloses the possibility of generation for the group that espouses it, However, Augustine responds to this charge by stating that if everyone were to embrace virginity, it would be a wonderful thing, because it would hasten the end of the temporal world.'® Moreover, he argues in no uncertain terms that virginity has its own fertility, and that it is superior to the possibility of reproduction within marriage: No corporal fecundity has brought forth this race of virgins; they are not the offspring of flesh and blood. If their mother is sought, she is the Church. No one brings forth consecrated virgins except a consecrated virgin, she who has been betrothed to be presented undefiled to one Spouse, Christ.!” Let us recall that the Church itself is frequently represented as the virgin bride of Christ. Like Mary, with whom it is also sometimes equated, the Church is a virgin mother, reproducing the purity of its spirit in the untarnished souls and inviolate bodies that come to dwell within it. A literal mother can only give birth to children. She cannot bring forth Christians from her womb, and when one considers the dogma that babies who die unbaptized cannot enter heaven, it becomes clear that corporal birth in and of itself accomplishes nothing for the Christian faith. Christians are only produced through membership in Christ's body (which is to say Christ's spouse, which is to say Ecclesia), a virgin, except of course in the case of Christine. With her that he may critique even his writing style. (See especially Jerome, Against Jovinianus, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 24 set.,eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace [New York: The Christian Literature 1896], vol. 6, St Jerome: Letters and Seleet Works, 1.3.) ‘Augustine, De Bono Coniugali, in De bono coniugali, De sancta uirginitate, ed. and tans, P.G. Walsh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), chap.10. "Hoe genus virginum nulla corporal fecunditas protulit; non est hace proles carnis. sanguinis. Siharum quaeritur mater, ecclesia est. Non parit virgines sacras nisi virgo sacra, ila quae ddesponsata est uni viro, easta exhiberi Christo.” Augustine, Holy Virginity, chap. 12. The Latin citation is from Augustine, De bono coniugali, De sancta uirginitate, ed, and trans. P.G. Walsh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001).183 name grafted to His, she is joined to Christ Himself (yet another virgin), and as a virgin, she too will be fecund. Christine’s mother has sacrificed her body, allowing herself to be inhabited by another, and experiencing great agony on that account. Christine also is inhabited by another (the Holy Spirit who enters her one night in the tower, and perhaps also Christ through the heavenly bread), and for this privilege she offers both her body (through virginity and martyrdom) and her soul. Her soul, in an interflow of love with the Word, seeks the kiss of the Bridegroom, so that she becomes filled to overflowing with the Word. As a result, what comes issuing out of her body (words through her mouth, red blood through her white skin) is not a child, but the spillover of the kiss: the love of God, the truth of God. Exulting in the joy of their interflow, the bride of Christ will scarcely experience the agony of martyrdom that is part of the process of her propagation of Christ. Itis important to note that Gautier’s Christine is exceptionally loquacious when compared to most other vernacular saints of whatever type or gender. It is true that at first her speech is veiled, so that Urban will not guess her true feelings towards Christ. After she becomes possessed of the Holy Spirit, however, Christine begins to proclaim her faith loudly and clearly. “En hault s’est escriee....” — “she cried out aloud...” (line 1844) — is one of several phrases with which Gautier de Coinci conveys the forcefulness of her speaking through the remainder of the narrative. Having received her Christian education from her godfather, her God-Father, she begins to educate others by doing through her speech what she had always done through her name: she propagates the name of Christ. In doing so, she disseminates throughout184 Tyre, her “savoir” in religious matters, which comes directly from God. Throughout her trials and interrogations, Christine demonstrates her proper Christian education, answering her tormentors’ interrogations with explanations of her faith, as if it were a catechism. In a sense, her role during the trials and conversions is that of sheotokos, the “God-bearer,” the one through whom Christ springs forth.'® Theotokos, is one of the titles of the Virgin, and like Mary, Christine now enjoys several important relationships with Christ. She is his daughter and his bride, but as the one who bears Him, she also occupies the position of mother. Of course, Christine's fecundity, while more laudable than that of her mother when one considers the offspring and the manner of impregnation, will not, however, be as glorious as that of the Virgin, because she cannot literally produce Christ from her womb, Nevertheless, as a virgin, she can conceive Christ spiritually in her heart, as the words of Augustine make clear: “Since she cannot, like Mary, conceive Him in the flesh, she preserves even her body intact for Him who has been conceived in her heart." According to La saincte vie de Nostre Dame, before conceiving Christ in the flesh, Mary must restrict her teaching to a private space in the company of a few devout young women. For her part, when Christine conceives Christ in her heart, she must bring Him forth through very public teaching. Christine's teaching cannot exalt Christ's name without at the same time attacking Urban’s gods (and authority) and arousing his anger. Unfortunately, the 8 ‘The Council of Ephesus proclaimed Mary the theoidkos in 431. This was an important step in {he development ofthe Cult ofthe Virgin, that is, the reverence of Mary as a virgin. (Bugge, 142.) “,.. guia eum sicut Maria coneipere came non posset, ei corde concepto etiam carmem integram custodiret.” Augustine, Holy Virginity, chap. 11185 outraged lord mistakenly believes that he can maintain his paternal role through violence. The very night of Christine’s first communion and rampage against the idols, Urban, unaware of her activities, reasons that if she does not show proper reverence to the gods during the rites of the next day, he will have to resort to corporal punishment: “Bien pert cil son enfant qui le dongiere et flate, ‘Mais quant il fait folie, bien le chastoit et bate. Voir se dist Salmon: ‘Qui espargne la v[elrge, Orgueil et desmesure en son enfant herberge.”” “He who subordinates himself to and flatters his child loses him indeed, Rather, when he misbehaves, he had better chastise and beat him. Solomon speaks truly: ‘He who spares the rod, Harbors arrogance and immoderation in his child.’ (lines 999-1002) The strange thing about this glimpse into Urban’s thinking is that to a medieval, audience it would have sounded perfectly reasonable. The character who appears elsewhere as a cruel pagan tyrant here quotes Solomon's famous dictum, which is still cited by many parents even today: Spare the rod, and spoil the child. The passage also reveals that Urban does not want to lose his child. When it really comes down to it, he does not always seem such a bad parent. He spends enormous sums of money celebrating his daughter's birth and surrounding her with the finest things and most. lerable respectable company. Moreover, he exhibits fondness, indulgence, and cot patience towards this intractable ten-year-old who pushes him away and repeatedly screams that she wouldn’t give a rotten apple for the gods and traditions he holds And yet, when the audience first reads/hears of the lord of Tyre, Gautier informs us of his orgueil and desmesure concerning the Lombard Christian‘community. He is the willful child vis-4-vis Christ, and his outrageous violence against Christianity is matched by his daughter's strident raging against paganism. In this, Urban and Christine are mirror images of each other. Urban defies his Creator, and Christine in turn disavows her father. So just as Urban intends not to spare la verge — the rod — in order to chasten her, God introduces la virge — the virgin — in order to chastise the tyrant’s unchecked arrogance. In fact, in ms, BNffi. 817, the base text for Olivier Collet’s critical edition of La Vie de sainte Cristine cited in this chapter, the word in line 1001 is actually spelled “virge,” meaning virgin: “He who spares the virgin harbors arrogance and immoderation in his child.” Collet corrects the provocative slip, as indi sated by the brackets in the above quote, which is unfortunate, since it raises two rather interesting ideas. The first is that Urban does not mean to spare the virgin, fearing that it will lead to her becoming arrogant and immoderate. This pun would be an acknowledgement that the virgin, because she has not accepted submission to a husband, is likely to surpass the accepted boundaries if not kept in check by strict paternal authority. In addition, the virge/verge slip reinforces the idea that the virgin is herself God’s chastening rod against arrogant, immoderate Urban. In particular, her tongue is a verge, since throughout their confrontation, she continually punishes him, attacking his gods, proclaiming the name he has worked so hard to suppress, and publicly mocking his authority as father and ruler. On his side, Urban starts out with the goal of chastising Christine through harsh but non-fatal violence, but as she continues to goad him with her ever-teady tongue, he soon determines that he will “undo” (“desfaire”) her altogether. As the187 conflict escalates, Urban orders her beaten with iron rods, thrown in a dungeon, starved, and burned on a wheel of fire. Later, when he tries to have her drowned in the sea, she is miraculously kept afloat and baptized by angels. Nonetheless, this is, the last straw for the exasperated maiden. In a conversation with Christ, she complains of all the hardships she has had to bear at her persecutor’s hands and asks for justice to be done. The chosen Father immediately removes the rejected father, who suffers a ghastly death and descends into hell, there to be tortured by devils for all eternity. The virgin’s martyrdom does not end there, however, and for that matter, neither does the paternal association with demons. Urban is succeeded by an imperial envoy, who upon his arrival in Tyre, immediately has Christine brought before him. After he has delivered a long speech as to why she should recant her Christianity, Christine points out that itis not polite to debate with someone without first introducing oneself. Charmed, he tells her that his name is Dion, to which she replies that itis a devil’s name. When he loses his temper at her cheek and condemns her faith, she retorts, “Sooth, you are a devil, no doubt about it!” (“Deable, voir, iés tu, de ce n'est nule doute.” line 2280) He then recommences her martyrdom (never ‘managing to hurt or kill her) and finally takes her to a temple to sacrifice to the gods. Now, in the medieval Christian concept of paganism, idols were not just powerless statues; they were vessels inhabited by malicious minions of Satan.” So instead of worshipping the idols, Christine commands the spirit inside of Apollo’s statue to emerge and show itself. Unable to face Apollo's inner demon, Dion goes out of his188 mind, dies horrifically, and follows Urban into hell. ‘Then comes Julian, the third and final persecutor, whose demonic nature Christine reads not in his name, but in his face: “Bien appert a ton vis / Qu’en ton cors est entré le deable tous vis.” (“It certainly shows in your face / That the devil has entered your body fully alive.”) Unlike his predecessors, he does manage to execute her, but not until after she predicts that he will die and be damned due to his treatment of her, which in fact occurs before her body is even buried. ‘Thus, Christine reveals the diabolical essence of the idols that act as extensions and symbols of Urban’s power, and she also exposes the diabolism of the successors who uphold the father’s law and continue his program to undo the virgin. Her imitatio Christi is mitrored by the association of Satan with the demonized agents of the paternal function. But the accusation of devilry can cut both ways. Much of the biographical evidence that exists about historical holy women was generated partly in an effort to determine whether the female conduit of supernatural power was the bride of Christ or Satan's (perhaps unwitting) accomplice. Centuries before the trial of Jeanne d’ Are and the storm of witch-hunts that swept Europe and America, the virgins of romance hagiography routinely faced accusations of sorcery from their tormentors. The underlying assumption is that, whether she be saint or witch, if a woman is a conduit of great power, it must not originate from within her, but rather from an external masculine entity with whom she shares an intimate bond. Surely a delicate girl could not break apart a wheel of torture, survive within a pyre, or raise the dead (all of which Christine does), unless she were in league with some otherworldly force! % This belief is expressed in nearly every vita I have read -Latin or vernacular and without ‘regard to period — in which a confessor or martyr preaches against idolatry or destroys idols and pagan189 More to the point, there seems to be an underlying fear in the feminine power of enchantment, Indeed, the accusations against the Old French virgins often come as a response to their apparent effect on others. A torturer who is not able to carry out his orders due to miraculous intervention may be charged with not doing his job, because he has been enchanted. Or else, a tyrant may accuse the virgin of charming the hundreds or thousands of pagans she has converted. ‘The two sides of the sorcery charge are therefore that the virgin works wonders no woman can accomplish, and that she excels at bewitching those around her, a ploy to be suspected in all women, ‘The last instance of such an accusation against Christine occurs when two heavenly voices inform her that she is about to be killed and receive her double crown. Nonplussed, Julian declares that she must be speaking with the Adversary through necromaney and orders her tongue cut out. In his essay on Christine de Pizan’s treatment of the life of Saint Christine, Kevin Brownlee points out that the severing of the virgin’s tongue fulfills a wish expressed towards the beginning of the narrative.”' During the first scene in which Christine openly confronts her father, he attempts to kiss her, and she repulses him, forbidding him to touch her mouth, because she wishes to offer a pure offering to God.” Brownlee notes, “This offering is now accomplished at the literal level with the sacrifice of her tongue, which simultaneously figures the dedication of her physical voice to God and the triumphant holy places. 21” "Christine de Pizan’s short prose version from part three of Le Livre de ta cité des dames differs markedly from Gautier de Coinci's lengthy verse redaction, but the two scenes discussed here are fundamentally the same in respect to Brownlee’s argument. 2 Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, rev. ed., trans. Barl Jeffrey Richards (New York: Persea Books, 1998), 235 and Gautier de Coinci lines 713-715,190 primacy of her spiritual voice.””* Her spiritual voice i \deed cries out so loudly (“a haute voiz s'escrie” — line 3557), that even the physical amputation of her tongue cannot curb her prayers, teachings, and professions. And yet, the tongue remains a punishing verge, for when Christine sees her tongue cast on the ground, she angrily snatches it up, smacks Julian with it, crushing his left eye, and continues preaching unabated. Itis not the horror of the amputation that infuriates Christine, but Julian's audacity in wishing to silence her glorification of God that drives her to avenge herself with the very organ he had tried to suppress. Here is ample illustration of the integritas of the virgin: even when part of her is cut away, nothing is wanting. All parts of her — even the severed part — unite to form a pure offering to God. One must keep in mind that Christine's martyrdom is presented throughout the narrative in the mode of imitatio Christi. For example, after relating the circumstances of Christine’s birth, Gautier foreshadows that she will love Christ so strongly (“durement”), that she will endure harsher torments (“tant dur endurement”) ‘than any human has ever endured, for Him who endured the cross and who endures forever, so that she will win joy without duration. (lines 87-94) The knot formed by variations of the words “dure” and “endurer” underlines Christine’s imitation of Christ. The imitatio Christi topos focuses on the replication of Christ’s suffering, so the dure-endurer word family is particularly effective, in that it evokes both Christ's crucifixion and Christine's martyrdom. Through the echoing phonemes, the two figures become intertwined in suffering and glory, so that Christine's trials and triumph even mimic Christ's on the level of sound. Kevin Brownlee, "Martyrdom and the Female Voice: Saint Christine in the Cité des dames,” in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, eds. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca191 Christine behaves like her namesake out of love for and his name. There can be no doubt as to whose offspring she really is. Her filiation is evident both in the similitude of the names and in her very willing mimicry of Christ’s immolation: “Il fu por moi batus et souffri grant destresce / [Et] je vueil bien por lui ce martire soutfrir.” (“He was beaten and suffered great agony for me / And I indeed wish to suffer this martyrdom for Him.” — lines 1526-1527) She does not pretend that “ce martire” will equal or requite His crucifixion; there is no way to pay the debt. Nonetheless, she chooses to express her love for Him in the same mode as that in which He has proven His love for her: through suffering. She who came into the world as Christine, a diminutive, feminine imitation of Christ, manifests her filiation by mimicking her true progenitor in martyrdom. Christine is prepared (even enthusiastic) to endure great pain, because her sacrifice is in imitation and recognition of Christ's torments. By contrast, she dismisses the agonies her mother suffered in childbirth and rejects the path that would lead to her own labor pains. Because it imitates Christ's, her suffering, as well as her reproduction, is that of a virgin, and not that of a woman under the old law. The virgin’s lot is more formidable on both counts. The lady of Tyre complains of the ‘great pain she endured, but has only a single child to show for it, and that birth has profited her nothing, since her only daughter rejects both the lineage and its paganism. Christine's torments, on the other hand, increases by thousands those who call themselves Christians, and who thereby graft their own identities onto the name of her acknowledged father. She effects mass conversions through her incessant teaching of Christian doctrine and through the spectacle of her martyrdom (another and London: Cornell University Press, 1991), 125.192 kind of teaching). Even after her death, she continues to be fecund, since the posthumous miracles that later take place at her tomb will eventually bring about the conversion of the entire city, filling Tyre with Christians. In token of her virginal purity, but also her spiritual maternity, when the persecutor Julian has her breasts ripped off, milk, rather than blood, pours forth. In this way, her martyr’s wound becomes the site of maternal nourishment, but her injuries must go hand in hand with her teaching in order to truly feed the community. Thus, when the women of Tyre hear about the loss of their mistress’ breasts, they visit her in prison that night in order to console her. This provides Christine the opportunity to teach, and by morning, she has converted them all. Only with this conversion do they understand her woman's, loss in the mode of Christic sacrifice. Her wounded chest flowing with milk certainly suggests her maternal function, but only by bearing Christ and bringing Him forth through her mouth does Christine become truly fecund. If Christine’s pain is not (like her mother’s) the literal agony of childbirth, it is nonetheless a necessary element in the spiritual fecundity that makes her a figurative mother. That is, although it may not be the same type of suffering that women normally bear in reproduction, itis its metaphorical equivalent. The differences between these two types of pain and reproduction certainly suggest that the virgin is, to borrow the words of Abelard “more than a woman,” and in her rich fertility, she may seem to “rise even above men.” But the similarities between the virgin as mother and the literal mother belie this view, because as mother, the virgin must be seen in a feminine role. Christine, the feminine imitator of Christ, may refuse subjugation to men and the relinquishing of her body for their reproductive needs, but193 because she is female, her relationship to Christ, in addition to being imitative, is also conceptualized in the very roles she otherwise rejects. For example, she rejoices during the procession to her execution as a bride going to her wedding, but echoing the course of Mary's life in La saincte vie de Nostre Dame, Christine’s entry into wedded life — i.e. her fatal stabbing ~ will conclude her career as teacher. Having refused during her short life to obey the laws governing women, the bride of Christ is destined in the end to assume a purely womanly role, The idea of Christine's execution as a wedding cannot help but obscure its conception as an imitation of the crucifixion. And yet, in her spousal relationship to Christ, Christine can indeed be thought to tise above men, because as a woman, her soul does not hesitate to ask the Bridegroom for a kiss. Furthermore, Christine's father-daughter bond with Christ is far more affectionate and nurturing than any relationship I have ever encountered in Latin or vernacular hagiography between God and a holy man. Clearly, femininity can provide an advantage in attaining a unity of affection with Christ, if not an ‘unproblematic synonymity with Christ. This would indicate that the virgin enjoys a particular kind of access to the power of God, an exceptional intermediary potential rooted in the mutual love they share. However, in sealing her position as the bride, sweetheart, or daughter of Christ, a virgin relinquishes her claim to masculine authority generally, failing yet again to quite embody the glory of God as one who is in His image. The virgin thus remains in the gendered binary on the side of the woman.194 Conclusion And therefore a richer gift of virginity has flowed upon women, because it began with a woman. Jerome, Letter 22 (Ad Eustochium), 21.7 In this dissertation, Ihave drawn from historical and literary documents of considerable diversity in order to trace some of the enduring problems and questions of feminine virginity in the Church. Which is not to say that during the more than eleven centuries from Tertullian’s De virginibus velandis to Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la cité des Dames the Church has been a monolithic and unchanging institution, If anything, this study should demonstrate that while, for the most part, there has been a continuity of auctoritas, the particulars of doctrine, ideology, imagery, and practice have been constantly subject to disputation and innovation. As the Church continued to develop, so too the concept and typology of virginity evolved, influenced, among other things, by the romancing and popularization of the heroic virgin martyr. Yet, each of the texts T have examined manifests a tension between the persistent desire to distinguish the virgin as not simply a women and the equally persistent need to type the virgin as feminine. This problem is most evident when the virgin’s role as sponsa Christi veils her sacrifices intended in imitatione Christi. One may well imagine that the enduring bridal imagery has had a profound effect on feminine spirituality. The gravity of this way of envisioning the virgin is such that it has also shaped the relationship of men and women and masculine and feminine vocations within the Church. The bride of Christ metaphor has had such a deep and lasting impact on ecclesiastical organization, that even in very recent years, it has emerged as a dominant image in195 one of the weightiest topics of debate within the Church today: the prohibition against the ordination of women as priests. On August 15, 1988, Pope John Paul II published an apostolic letter entitled Mulieris dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women), in which he proclaims the worth of women, as revealed in scripture and in Church history, while firmly maintaining his opposition to their ordination. Apparently, he did not make his position clear enough, however, because on May 26, 1994, he felt compelled to publish the apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (Reserving the Priestly Ordination 10 Men Alone). In the second, relatively terse document, his primary argument against the ordination of women is that Christ chose only male Apostles and that the Apostles, in imitation of Christ, ordained men alone.’ He pointedly declines to make a fuller case for the Church’s exclusion of women, referring the faithful instead to the declaration approved by Paul VI entitled Inter Insigniores (On the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood — October 15, 1976), in which the policy is explained at length. What is of interest here is that according to both Mulieris dignitatem and Inter Insigniores, one reason that only men may serve as priests is that they alone may effectively imitate Christ as Bridegoom. ‘Thus, it is not insignificant that in Mulieris dignitatem, John Paul II discusses virginity as a feminine vocation, rather than as simply a virtue to which young ‘women (or all Christians, for that matter) should aspire. His letter makes it clear that by “vocation”, we should understand both a spiritual calling and an evangelical mission, but of course, especially in the context of the masculine domain, “vocation”may also refer to an ecclesiastical career, While virginity is theologically important as an otherworldly virtue, as 2 vocation, it gains political relevance. In the case of Mulieris dignitatem, the vocations of women are discussed in glowing terms, but they are also delimited in contradistinction to the vocations of men, or rather to that single vocation on everyone's minds: the priesthood, In fact, John Paul II discusses just two vocations for women: virginity and motherhood.’ He indicates that both are specific callings of women, saying, “We ‘must now focus our meditation on virgi and motherhood as two particular dimensions of the fulfillment of the female personality.”® He portrays virginity, a choice through which women may “confirm themselves as persons, as beings whom, the Creator has willed for their own sake,” as a liberating Christian innovation, But he quickly moves from a description of the evangelical purity of the early Church (a purity which women could also embrace) to a spousal concept of virginity: “One cannot correctly understand virginity ~ a woman's consecration in virginity - without, referring to spousal love. It is through this kind of love that a person becomes a gift for the other.” Women “realize the personal value of their own femininity” by making of themselves a sincere bridal offering. In other words, there can be no understanding of virginity independent of a matrimonial ideal. Jobin Paul I, Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis on Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone (Washington, D.C: Office of Publishing and Promotion Services, U.S. Catholic Conference, 1994), chaps. 1- : One of the many aspects of John Paul's theology that differentiates his work from the patristic ‘and medieval texts discussed elsewhere is the way in which he valorizes both marriage and virginity ‘without preferring one to the other. In reaction to heretical arguments that marriage was sinful and. Virginity the avoidance of sin, or else that marriage was superior to virginity, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose (and Thomas Aquinas, following Augustine) all ake great pains to assert that marriage is good, but virginity far better. John Paul II’s passionate affirmation of rmotherhood reflects his condemnation of abortion, present throughout the letter. 5 Mulieris Dignitatem, 6.17. c Ibid. 6.20.197 Additionally, the pope argues that by nature, women enjoy greater access to such a marital understanding of perpetual abstinence: ‘The naturally spousal predisposition of the feminine personality finds a response in virginity understood in this way. Women, called from the very "beginning" to be loved and to love, in a vocation to virginity find Christ first of all as the redeemer who "loved until the end” through his total gift of self; and they respond to this gift with a "sincere gift” of their whole lives. They thus give themselves to the divine Spouse, and this personal gift tends to union which is properly spiritual in character. Through the Holy Spirit's action a woman becomes "one spirit" with Christ, the Spouse. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 6:17) In theory, it would be possible for any woman of whatever sexual history to enter the spiritual relationship described here, although one would suppose that such a woman could not be deemed a virgin if she had experienced intercourse. Yet this is unclear since, although the Pope rather firmly emphasizes the spiritual nature of the virgin’s union with her Spouse, he omits any mention of the role of the body in the virgin condition. For example, concerning virgins he speaks of the “sincere gift’ of their whole lives” and their giving “themselves” as a response to Christ's “total gift of self” without any explicit reference to the corporal. Of course, the reader could reasonably be expected to know that both gifts involve bodily sacrifice, yet itis striking that he should not have so much as mentioned the passion of Christ's body or the purity of the virgin’s body. Rather, the quote from First Corinthians obliquely evokes the issue of the body. Paul’s statement that “he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” is situated within a longer discourse on the importance of guarding the body, the “temple of the Holy Spirit,” against gluttony and licentiousness:198 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as itis written, “The two shall become one flesh.” But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body: but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. ‘So glorify God in your body.° The Pauline passage points to a fundamental problem with the virginity-as-marriage metaphor. Paul evokes the idea of becoming one spirit with God in opposition to the idea in Genesis that through sexual intercourse two human beings “become one flesh.” Christian devotion nonetheless involves a corporal commitment, because the bodies of the faithful are members of Christ. As Paul commands, the Christian has an obligation to glorify God in the body. John Paul II only directly refers to union through the spirit, but in referencing Paul's injunctions, he introduces the idea of the consecration of the body. With the metaphor of marriage the pope suggests that the virgin gives herself to a divine ‘Spouse through spiritual union as the married woman bonds with her husband through sexual union. Perhaps he avoids overtly stating such a simple analogy, because even if virginity is a spiritual gift, it requires bodily integrity. Both types of union entail a corporal commitment, because the virgin must glorify God in the body. John Paul is clearly aware that such is the case, but he curtails any reference to the physical prerequisite of the “properly spiritual” spousal union. Through this ellipsis, he avoids a lengthy and complicated discussion of the correlation between body and spirit in the individual's relationship with the Divine. Furthermore, he sidesteps the ‘ 1 Corinthians, 6.15-20. Genesis 2.24,199 problem of explaining why this particularly feminine path to divine union should rely on a strict corporeal purity that is not considered necessary in any masculine vocations, The body of a Christian, elided from the Pope’s discourse, but nonetheless present through the Pauline reference, is symbolic. It is a member of Christ and a temple of the holy spirit. Symbolism through the body and bodily metaphors are integral to the foundation and organization of the Church. ‘The virgin is a bride of Christ. That means that she is the body of which Christ — as husband — is head. The Church virgin body, which means that it is Christ’s body, as Christ is its head. Allof its members, male and female, are thus members of Christ's body, but the body is resolutely feminine, because it is the bride. Christ, as Bridegroom has a masculine body. Thus, during the mass, the virgin body of the bride of Christ assembles, its members joined in an offering to Christ. The body of the Bridegroom is also present, symbolized by the priest, because as Inter Insigniores explains, in the celebration of the Eucharist, the priest “is a sign” and acts in personae Christi® The priest's body ‘must visually evoke the body of Jesus Christ, but only a man’s body may do this in a sufficiently perceptible way: ...When Christ’s role in the Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this “natural resemblance” which must exist between Christ and his minister if the role of Christ were not taken by a man: in such a case it would be difficult to see in the minister the image of Christ. For Christ himself was and remains a man.” Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (1976) in The Churches Speak on: Women’s Ordination, ed. Gary L. Ward (Detroit: Gale Research, Inc, 1991), chap. 5. : Ibid200 A womian cannot fulfill the sacramental role of priest, because although she may reflect in her body Christ's humanity, she is unable to represent his masculinity. Of course, itis true that John Paul II prefers to discuss the “female personality” rather than the female body, but Inter Insigniores, endorsed in both of the pope's writings concerning the ordination of women, makes it clear that what is at stake is the ‘woman's ability to visibly suggest the image of Christ. This is not to suggest that the priest has to look like Jesus. Inter Insigniores implies that a priest's ethnicity, for example, would not be a factor in his being seen in personae Christi." Rather, the minister, in the fact of his masculinity, must be seen to reflect the masculinity of the Bridegroom. Yet, must we see the priest only as the Bridegroom? Could he not also be the bride, the one whose soul asks for a kiss? Why should there be a distinction between the virgin and the priest? After all, in his definition of virginity in terms of spousal Jove, John Paul II virtually makes of the virgin bride of Christ a model for priestly celibacy: ‘One cannot correctly understand virginity - a woman's consecration in virginity - without referring to spousal love. It is through this kind of love that a person becomes a gift for the other. Moreover, a man’s consecration in priestly celibacy or in the religious state is to be understood analogously.'" It would certainly have been possible for the supreme pontiff to have made this statement without making mention of either gender; the references to a woman's consecration and a man’s may be excised without rendering the passage incomprehensible. Instead, when speaking of virginity as an expression of spousal love (rather than as a Christic or apostolic virtue) the woman's gift of herself in201 spiritual wedlock functions as the basic type. A man’s celibacy is merely an analog for what is essentially a feminine consecration. ‘The priest, then, also offers himself as “a gift for the other.” This would indicate that the vocation of a priest is also the fruit of spousal love with Christ, but the pope is very careful to link the bridal motif to feminine virginity with the insertion of the phrase “a woman's consecration in virginity.” John Paul If is also careful to distinguish “a man’s consecration” by labeling it as celibacy, rather than virginity. ‘This is the word he most often uses when male figures are concerned, reserving the word “virginity” to designate the concept in abstraction and to discuss holy women and women in general. As I explained in my discussion of Tertullian’s text, celibacy is not at all the same thing as virginity, given that it permits prior sexual experience. The pope does not acknowledge the significant distinction between the perpetual “total gift of self” from a woman in the form of virginity and the relatively partial gift from a man in the form of celibacy. What the analogy between virginity and celibacy really accomplishes is less a likening of the two than a differentiation between them along gender lines. A woman may be a virgin. A man may be a priest. But there are no virgin priests; only male celibates and female gifts to the Spouse. As Tertullian perceived from the start, the most basic question in regards to virginity, the question on which the virgin vocation and the structure of the Church depend, is whether or not the virgin belongs to the category of woman, As he was careful to point out, if the virgin functions as a man, she is the image and glory of God, and therefore must be eligible for meaningful masculine entitlements within the Mulieris Dignitatem, 6.20.structure and rituals of the Church. Through history, theologians and has \graphers writing about virginity have differed as to whether a virgin, through her steadfast virtue and angelic purity, may equal or surpass men, but none have identified the virgin as a man. None have accorded to virgins meaningful masculine entitlements. To the contrary, the typing of the virgin as the bride of Christ has firmly situated her on the feminine side of the gender binary. After all, any woman can become the sponsa Christi without having to consecrate her virginity, albeit with greater difficulty. Indeed, John Paul II discusses the “convergence between the virginity of the unmarried woman and the motherhood of the married woman.” The virgin may stand out among Women in that she rejects marriage, but as a woman, she possesses that “naturally spousal predisposition” which leads her to give herself to “Christ the Spouse.” Her vow of sexual purity may render impossible corporeal maternity, but John Paul IT consoles her for this loss, stating, “The renunciation of this kind of motherhood, a renunciation that can involve great sacrifice for a woman, makes possible a different kind of motherhood: motherhood ‘according to the Spirit.” Yet, soon afterwards he queries, “And does not physical motherhood also have to be a spiritual motherhood, in order to respond to the whole truth about the human being who is a unity of body and spirit?”'? In the convergence of the married and the unmarried, the mother and the virgin, there is nothing that might distinguish the virgin as not-woman. As woman, the virgin’s body cannot be viewed sacramentally as a sign of Christ in his masculinity. Despite all this, can the virgin not at least be seen to evoke in the fact of her virginity the virginity of Christ? Obviously not, for if this dissertation has203 demonstrated nothing else, itis that the virgin is veiled. There is no way to visibly perceive virginity (unless itis integrally tied to martyrdom, resulting in the death of the virgin), and even if this were not the case, there is no way to either expose or view the virgin that does not entail the risk of sin or misunderstanding. Yet, even if it were possible to see the virgin as such, because she is female, her virginity is not perceived in imitatione Christi, but rather in imitatione Mariae. The pope consistently evokes Mary as the archetype of all women: mothers, married women, brides of Christ, and of course, virgins. By contrast, Christ is the archetype of masculine virtue: “Precisely because Christ's divine love is the love of a Bridegroom, it is the model and pattern of all human love, men’s love in particular.”!? Whatever virtue a man might possess may be perceived as a virtue adopted from Christ. Thus, the male priest, although he does not necessarily share Christ's virginity, is successfully seen in imitatione Christi: “It is the Eucharist above all that expresses the redemptive act of Christ the Bridegroom, towards the Church the Bride. This is clear and unambiguous when the sacramental ministry of the Eucharist, in which the priest acts ‘in persona Christi’ is performed by a man.”"* The centrality of the spousal imagery reinforces the binary division of biological sex, psycho-social gender, and heterosexual desire. On the one side, there are the Virgin Mother of God, the Church, the theot6kos, and the female virgin, who give themselves freely in spousal love to Christ, the head. On the other side, there are Christ, the priest, the persona Christi, and the male celibate who love and care for the bride, the body. With this binary division, John Paul II promotes an idea of the204 dignity of womanhood based on nurturing and loving roles, while denying women positions of ecclesiastical authority, which remain bastions of masculine power.'* And so, after all, the virgin remains veiled. Her spousal veil marks her firmly with the mark of womanhood, despite her affinity with the sexless angels. The virgin is veiled in language that reveals her as the Church itself, while functionally depriving her of any authority within the Church. Above all, the veil of the sponsa Christi conceals the virgin’s reflection of Christ’s virginity and her imitation of His gift of self. Her resemblance to Christ can never gain her access to the mysteries of the priesthood, so long as it remains obscured behind the veil. Ibid. 7.26. Although, since Mary, the woman who among all human beings was most glorified by God, ‘was not made an apostle, John Paul II argues that the barring of women from the priesthood does not indicate that they are of lesser dignity, and he therefore does not consider it discrimination that they are limited in the Church hierarchy. (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, chap. 3.) The papal documents examined here do not discuss issues of ecclesiastical power, pay equity, and monastic self-governance.205 Bibliography Primary Hagiographical and Literary Sources Bozon, Nicholas. La Vie seinte Margarete. In Three Saints" Lives by Nicholas Bozon, ed. Sister M. Amelia (Klenke). St. Bonaventure, N-Y.: The Franciscan Institute, 1947. Centre Universitaire du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, Département des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines. “La Cantiléne de sainte Eulalie.” In BABEL. Available from http://wow.restena.lu/cul/BABEL/T_M: accessed 8 February 2003. G_CANTILENE.html, Internet; Chrétien de Troyes. Cligés. 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