Paper Presentation

Role of Women Mystics in the Middle Ages with Special Reference to Catherine of
Siena

Submitted to: Dr. Kiheigumle Ndang

Submitted by: Joyel Santhosh, Madiki Sridhar and Manish Tamang (BD IV)

Introduction
From the middle of the 5th century to the middle of the 15th, mysticism grew in many
parts of Europe and England. During the time of the Middle Ages, many women have played
a great role and contributed immensely for the Church. This paper will be dealing with the
status of women, factors contributed in the development of women mysticism, Women mystics
and Catharine of Siena and her society during the Middle Ages.

1. Understanding mysticism
According to Merriam-webster dictionary
The belief that directs knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can
be attained through subjective experience (such as intuition or insight).1
The mystical part of mediaeval theology grew out of the scholasticism. Mysticism aims
for the personal oneness of the soul with the spirit through inner devotions and spiritual desires,
it is more abstract than logical, mysticism is from the heart rather than the head, through
spiritual feelings rather than intellectual prowess, and through the immediate contact of the
soul with God rather than through rituals and ceremonies. The word that best describes what a
mystic does is "devotion," Mysticism looks for God less outside of the person and more inside
of the person. It depends more on what people have done than on what they have been told.
Mysticism is against rationalism and ritual formalism in the same way2.

1
Merriam Webster, “Mysticism Definition & Meaning,” Merriam-Webster (Merriam-Webster, 1828),
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mysticism.
2
Philip Schaff and David S. Schaff, History of the Christian Church: Volume v The Middle Ages from Gregory
Vii., 1049, to Boniface Viii., 1294 (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1910), 338.
 2. Status of women before the middle age
From the day when Eve ate that fruit and disobeyed God, her position has been lowered
and degraded. Throughout the world's history, we can see how God is bringing back what He
always wanted her to be. Patristic period has a very limited resources about women’s role in
christian church. The previous paper on women in the theology of church father have talked
on majority of the history, specially focusing in the theological writings on the women of the
patristic period. Keeping their presentation in mind let’s look the women role in the apostolic
period curling with the patristic period in social and spiritual context.

2.1 Social Aspect

Christianity emerged in the mixture of 3 important and different culture, the Romans,
the greek and the jewish culture. In all these 3 culture the role of the women many similarly
and dissimilarities also. In greek society Women were placed almost on the same level as slaves
and were subject to the power and control of their husbands both by custom and by law.
Her position was only that of the mother of the family. Indeed, her duties and
achievements were hardly considered, by the husband, in a much higher light than
those of a faithful domestic slave.3
Greeks were great thinkers, poets, sculptors, painters, and architects, but not a single woman
ever made the smallest mark in any field of literature, art, or science4.

Under the Roman Empire, women had a little more freedom than they did in Greece.
Legally wives were still seen as a piece of property that the husband had full control over but
the law was interpreted differently, and women had a lot of freedom. Also, the wife was not
kept secluded from the rest of the world like in a Greek house. Roman women played a major
role in her husband's life and set a standard of wifely and motherly virtues5.

Women’s potion in Jewish culture is very paradoxical. One the one hand, there is the
popular synagogue prayer that begins, “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe,
who hast not made me a woman.” On other hand we see proverbs 31:10,25–28 talks about how
special and priceless a woman is6.

3
Charles Caldwell Ryrie, The Role of Women in the Church (Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2011), 14.
4
Ryrie, The Role of Women in the Church, 15.
5
Ryrie, The Role of Women in the Church, 16-19.
6
Ryrie, The Role of Women in the Church, 20.
 Jewish women are seeming to have two spheres of services that is public and private
spheres. In private spheres the women are everything. The one who encourage her husband to
holiness, the one who is in charge of her child and there was a practice of mother naming the
child at the same time mother was entrusted with the first teaching. She wasn't alone in this
training. The father joined her in a way that complemented her, and the children were expected
to show the same amount of respect to both parents. In public sphere A Jewish woman's public
life is almost the same as her religious life, and in this way, she was neither a passive
worshipper nor a leader. There were many religious things they could do, and some of them
did. However, other activities were not allowed to them, so it was not possible to draw the
conclusion that even those that were allowed we're actually allowed for them. Most of the time,
they did not take on leadership roles. Instead, men ruled the public scene in Israel.
In this context we see Christianity offered a new order to a world that had lost its morals,
and it's clear that it was very appealing to women, who joined the new faith on the same basis
as men7 . Women in Christian community were no more, just wife, slave or a child barrier but
from the apostolic to the patristic period they played a vital role in planting churches and
sharing gospel.

2.2 Religious aspect

Religious aspect in Apostolic and Patrisitic period is very debatable and controversial.
This is because of lack of understanding in the context of the writer. Church has sadly used
certain writings of Paul and made it as a law book of christianity by not really understanding
the Paul’s theology.
Women were very important in the early church, "All of the Fathers agree that women
cannot be priests. Priests can only be men.”8 but we can see there are many major roles lead by
women, which is talked some early church fathers.

2.2.1 Widows as the minister

Proteus Peregrinus, a philosopher during his travels, Proteus joined the Christians for a
while and was put in jail. He says:
They tried everything they could to get him out of jail. When this wasn't possible, they
took care of all of his other needs with constant care and devotion. Old women (called

7
Page Smith, Daughters of the Promised Land, (Boston Si Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1970), 22.
8
Frederika Pronk and G. Miller, “Christian Library,” The Role of Women in the Early Church | Christian Library,
January 1, 1981, https://www.christianstudylibrary.org/article/role-women-early-church#endnote-ref-18.
"widows") and orphan children could be seen waiting outside the prison doors as early as
dawn, while the officers of the church were able to spend the night inside with him by bribing
the jailers. Meals were brought in, and they followed their holy rituals9.
This shows that the Widows were cared for by the church, and in turn they ministered
in prayer.

2.2.2 Deaconesses
The role of deaconesses in the New Testament is not as clear or easy to understand but
Pliny (a natural philosopher) mentions of the two ministrae (Latin for "ministers") in his letter
to Trajan was the first time that deaconesses were mentioned in the church as a recognised
group.10
So I thought it the more necessary to inquire into the real truth of the matter by subjecting to
torture two female slaves, who were called deacons; but I found nothing more than a perverse
superstition which went beyond all bounds.”11

3. Factors contributed in the Development of women mysticism

Status of women in early medieval period struggled to survive in male’s World. In the early
Middle Ages, it was commonly accepted, especially among religious writers, that women as a
whole were not only deficient in reason, but morally weak and therefore prone to sin, especially
sins of a sensual nature. By early middle age, women got Access to educational opportunities
were barred to all except the nobility, and careers for women in law, medicine, commerce,
teaching, much less military service, were virtually non-existent.12 It was the instution of
Monasticism that offered women the real opportunities for professional ministry during the
middle ages. Monasticism instution was an important outlet for women who desired to commit
their life to fulltime spiritual endeavours, especially after the fifth century. Only widows and
virgins were permitted to join the convent as life time requirement. According to the teaching
of the church the saints and mystics reign together with Christ and offer their prayers to God
on behalf of humankind. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE, the phenomenon of
women recluses developed in western Europe. From her cell, the women recluse could follow

9
Ryrie, The Role of Women in the Church, 110.
10
Ryrie, The Role of Women in the Church, 93.
11
Ryrie, The Role of Women in the Church, 109.
12 Paul E. Szarmach, An introduction to the medieval mystics of Europe (New York: New York press, 1984), 184.
through a window all the church services in the church and much of women day was devoted
in prayer, meditation and spiritual reading.13

Medieval women were kept out of the universities, for they could not become scholastic
theologians. But many achieved distinction through becoming powerful writers on spirituality
and mysticism.14 women mystics drew on their experience of the divine to provide spiritual
guidance for others. Such women became highly respected leaders of the faithful. Their role as
prophets and healers was the one exception to women’s presumed inferiority in medieval
society.15

4. Some Women Mystics in Middle Ages

Although there were few narratives like Women are weak, they are prone to heresy, could not
teach, needed more guidance and needed men to establish the bounds of orthodoxy for them,
still women’s prayer was regarded as more effective.16 So, an understanding can be drawn out
that women began to take prominent role in Christian community, especially in regards to
spiritual and mystical areas. Some of the prominent women mystics during the Middle Ages
are discussed below:

4.1 Saint Leoba

Leoba’s parents were barren, yet strict observers of God’s commandment. After a long year of
barrenness, her mother gets a dream one particular night where she sees herself conceiving a
child. After short span of time, she gave birth to a daughter who was named Leoba. 17 Leoba
was born in 700 A.D. in Wessex, England. Her mother separated Leoba for God. As a result,
she was sent as a child to Wimbome to study the sacred science under Mother Tetta. She was
a diligent student and became known both for her intellect and her sanctity. 18Leoba grew up
taking no pleasures in the aimless girlish romance but fired by the love of Christ, fixed her
mind always on reading or hearing the word of God.19

13
Narola Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity (Assam: TDCC, 2010), 79.
14
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 78.
15
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/women-in-medieval-church-mystics Assessed on
21/08/2022.
16
Andrea Janelle Dickens, The Female Mystic: Great Women Thinkers of the Middle Ages (New York: I.B. Tauris,
2009), 1.
17
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 79.
18
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 78.
19
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 79.
She became a religious teacher and was also appointed as abbess of Bischofsheim, where she
helped in the establishment of a new convent. She became so much learned in the scripture and
so wise in the counsel that Bishops often discussed Church matters with her. Having all these
knowledge and intellect, she believed that she was a mystic endowed with certain charismatic
gifts.20 These miracles and charismatic gifts were evident as the answers to her prayers and her
self-control. She also had this sense of charismatic authority that she was personally chosen by
God to carry out a special mission.21
4.2 Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard too was a consecrated child. She was born in 1098 AD. She was the youngest among
the 10 children, and was separated for the Lord at the age of seven or eight as a kind of tithe to
God. Initially she was serving her relative aunt “Jutta” who lived as an anchoress. 22 Jutta’s
isolated dwelling would become the basis for a Benedictine convent. By age 14, Hildegard had
professed her vows to become a member of this community. In 1136, when Jutta dies,
Hildegard was elected as an abbess of that convent to take her place.23
Five years later, in 1141, she first began to experience visions, a voice from heaven gave her
the command to "tell and record" what she had been seeing. She didn't disclose the situation to
anyone in her community until this moment, at age 43. A voice from heaven in Latin, spoke
and dictated her books and letters. The voice also assisted her in interpreting the visions as she
was recording them. It is through this twofold process of vision and interpretation that
Hildegard’s Scivias unfolds: first the vision is described, then each detail, figure or color is
explained in terms of its allegorical significance.24 Bernard of Clairvaux admired her writings
and thinking, and also recommended her to Pope Eugenius III, who became her supporter,
urging her to publish her writings. In her old age, Hildergard had a vision to set off for a
preaching tour across the country, to the place where she had never been on her life, which was
an extraordinary task for a woman of that time period.25

20
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 79.
21
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 79.
22
Monica Furlong, Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1997),
84.
23
Dickens, The Female Mystic, 27.
24
Dickens, The Female Mystic, 27.
25
Furlong, Visions and Longings, 85.
 4.3 Julian of Norwich

Julian was born in England in 1342. A very little is known about her childhood and family
background. It was during a troubled time that she lived, because England was going through
30 years’ war with France. 26 Julian too lived as an anchoress attached to Saint Julian at
Conisford in Norwich. It is probable that her name was derived from the church, which was a
common custom with anchoresses, hence there is also probability that Julian wasn’t her original
name.27
She was a religious person and she had begged for three specific gifts. First was the experience
of Passion, second was the near-death encounter at the age of thirty and the third one was the
gift of three wounds: the wounds of contrition, natural compassion, and longing for God. In
early May 1373, Julian was seriously down with some kind of illness which was succumbing
her body to paralysis. At that moment, she realized her request for a deeper experience of
passion, and before her eyes the crucifix began to bleed. This experience lasted for 2 days, and
in these 2 days, she received what she termed as a “Revelation of Love” comprising sixteen
Showings (or insights) revolving around the love of Christ, and incorporating the great themes
of redemption, mercy, God’s providence, the mystery of sin.28
Julian of Norwich is a female thinker who has come to be regarded as a cornerstone of women’s
mysticism in the Middle Ages. She also emerged as a theologian who paid her attention to
trinity and to Christ’s role in mediating love and compassion for a fallen humanity. She
regarded Jesus as Mother, since according to her Jesus is the creative force that reunifies human
and God. She claimed that Jesus had the character and performed the activities of an earthly
mother. He fed the Christian with His body as a mother feeds her child with milk.29
Other than the above discussed women mystics there were other prominent and influential
women mystics as well, such as: Saint Joan of Arc, Christina of Markyate, Papess Johanna,
Mechtild of Magdeburg, Margery Kempe, Birgitta of Sweden.

26
Elizabeth Ruth Obbard, ed., Medieval Women Mystics (USA: New City Press, 2002), 119.
27 Furlong, Visions and Longings, 85.
28
Obbard, Medieval Women Mystics, 120.
29
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 89.
 5. Catharine of Siena
Catherine of Siena was active in mystical life, as a teacher, reformer, counselor and apostle.
Catherine although Untutored, possessed an unusual intelligence, enriched with infused
wisdom, a dynamic personality, a compelling sense of her mission and a gift for leadership.30

5.1. Biography
Caterina Di Giacomo Di Benincasa (Catherine) born in Siena on March 25, 1347. Her mother
was Lapa and her father was Giacomo di Benincasa a dyer. 31 She was the child of a lower-
class family, the twenty fourth of twenty-five children. Unusually pious, she is said to have
vowed her virginity to God at the age of seven, she had visions and religious insights
throughout her youth, as she was to do for the rest of the life. 32 For early childhood, Catherine
sensed that God had a special ministry for her. Even as a child she claimed to have visions and
lived ascetically.33 By the age of fifteen, she had resolved not to marry. 34 At 16, moved by a
vision of St. Dominic, she entered the Dominican third order, in the feminine branch called the
Mantellata. She devoted her life to asceticism, penance and works of charity, above all for the
benefit of the sick.35 At seventeen she was badly marked by smallpox, and perhaps because of
this, and its affects her chances of marriage. Catherine had no formal education, she became
known for her gifts as a teacher and for her skill in expounding complex theological ideas. She
became the central figure of powerful group of thinkers who wanted to see the church
reformed.36 When her fame for sanctity spread, she became the protagonist in an intense
activity of spiritual counsel, dealing with all categories of persons: Nobles and politicians,
artists and ordinary people, consecrated persons, Ecclesiastics, including Pope Gregory XI
whom, Catherine exhorted energetically and effectively to return to Rome.37

5.2.Mystical experience

In 1370, she experienced “Mystical Death” –Four hours of inner ecstasy but outward
immobility and she said that during this time Christ exchanged his heart for her own and

30
Szarmach, An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe, 184.
31
Imchen, Women in Christian history, 80.
32
Furlong, Visions and Longings, 157.
33
Imchen, Women in Christian history, 80.
34
Furlong, Visions and Longings, 167.
35
https://www.denvercathedral.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/SAINT-CATHERINE-OF-SIENA.pdf Assessed
on 21/08/2022.
36
Furlong, Visions and Longings, 158.
37
https://www.denvercathedral.org/wp- Assessed on 21/08/2022.
strengthen her resolve to be about the business of God. 38 After the three years of celestial
visitations and familiar conversation with Christ, she underwent the mystical experience known
as Spiritual Espousals. During the summer of 1370, she had this mystical experience of death,
in which she had a vision of hell, purgatory and heaven, and heard a divine command to leave
her cell and center the public life of the world. She began gather disciples round her, both men
and women and who formed Spiritual Fellowship. 39 because of her mystical visions and her
communications with the Father, Catherine was not only a philosophical realist but also a
biblical realist. She understood that there is a heaven and there is a hell. She understood that
human life itself and how free will is exercised, matter. Catherine saw Jesus Christ as the only
bridge that brought human troubled waters of sin and chaos to the joy and glory of heaven for
which we were made.40

The mystic asks nothing for herself but it concerning with honoring God and helping
Humanity. She frequently, soul rise up, restless with tremendous desire for God’s honor and
salvation of souls. She has for some time exercised herself in virtue and has become
accustomed to dwelling in the cell of self-knowledge in order to know better God’s goodness
toward her.41 Three petitions of Catherine: First, God’s instrument for good in the world, for
the reform of the church; next petition for church reform emphasizes the importance of
sacramental life. Thirdly, reveals the mystics’ all-consuming service to their neighbors and
unified with God, becomes his instrument for good on earth.42

5.3.Her Contributions
a. Political Contributions

St. Catherine’s mystical prayer led her to involvement in the affairs of the world, whether it
was an ill-starred attempt to make peace between the warring city states or her rather direct
appeal to Pope Gregory XI that he returns from exile in Avignon to the City of Rome. 43 In the
last five years of her life she became involved with the political of both church and state. Her
attempts to make peace between Florence and papacy.44 Catherine influence on the Dominican

38
Furlong, Visions and Longings, 158.
39
Imchen, Women in Christian history, 81.
40
Furlong, Visions and Longings, 158
41
Obbard, Medieval Women Mystics, 186.
42
Obbard, Medieval Women Mystics, 186.
43
https://www.archbalt.org/st-catherine-of-siena/?print=pdf Assessed on 21/08/2022.
44
Imchen, Women in Christian history, 80.
order is seem in the reform movement. Catherine role as spiritual adviser, peacemaker, and
Admonitory counsellor to secular and ecclesiastical rulers, and like Birgitta, leader in the Santo
passaggio cause, were accomplished by her direct intervention.45

b. Literary contributions

Catherine written numerous letters and inspired and accomplished many aspects.
Catherine’s work includes her 382 letters, twenty-six prayers and the dialogue, a colloquy
between he soul and God, which is also called as the Book of Devine Doctrine.46 Catherine
Wrote frequent letters to both to urban to moderate pope harshness and to various European
rulers.47 All of her writings reveal the multiple influence of spirituality of Augustine, Cassian,
Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clarirvaux, Francis of Assisi, Thamos Aquinas.48 In Catherine’s
Dialogues or in her letters we would not find speculative treatises on the dignity of the human
person or passages that offer clues for the dilemmas posed by contemporary healthcare. 49
Catherine was not content with having carried out an intense and most vast work of truth in
goodness in word and in writing. She desired to seal it all with the final offer of her life, for the
mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, at the still youthful age of 33 years.50

6. Impact on the Status of Women

The role of Medieval Women Mystics has really impacted the status of women. If we compare
to the status of women in Patriarchal stage with the time after the Medieval Women Mystics,
then we can clearly figure out that a lot of positive changes has come in the way of perceiving
the role of women in Christianity. Some of those impacts are discussed below:

6.1 Expression of the Immediacy

Peter Dronke notices that the writings of the women mystics were urgently serious than
compared to the male writers of that time. It was a response springing from inner needs, more
than from an artistic, or didactic inclination. Dronke describes the quality of the women’s

45
https://www.archbalt.org/st-catherine-of-siena/?print=pdf Assessed on 21/08/2022.
46
Imchen, Women in Christian history, 83
47
Imchen, Women in Christian history, 84
48
Obbard, Medieval Women Mystics, 185
49
Obbard, Medieval Women Mystics, 186.
50
https://d2y1pz2y630308.cloudfront.net/23112/documents/2019/12/Unit%208.%202.%201.%20St.%20Cathe
rine%20of%20Siena%20Spiritual%20Exultation.pdf Assessed on 21/08/2022.
writing as “Immediacy.”51 A sense of psychological release and expression can be traced in
this urgency of immediacy. The pressure of the visions compelled the visionary, often timidly,
to share what had been seen and understood.52 In a way, they became more expressive about
their thoughts, events, how they perceive the environment and society, through their writings.

6.2 Increasing role of Women

One of the characteristics between 1350 and 1500, according to Kenneth Scott Latourette, was
the growing importance of women in the Christianity. Women played a vital role in during that
time. There have been a lot of women saints. Women as role models and leaders of the church
was increasing. Although the majority of monastic orders and theologies were founded by
males but more so than before, women were emerging as mystics and saints. 53 Mystics like
Catherine of Siena was as an influential personality in the political matter of her time. And
many other women mystics contributed in expanding the role of women to the writers, poets,
theologians, prophets, saints and mystics.

6.3 Education and Arts

In the Middle Ages, a lot of nunneries and convents were developed as hubs for female
education, frequently offering the only education open to women. The only option for women
to receive an education beyond what could be provided in the home was through monasticism
because they were not allowed at universities. Margery Kemp, Hildegard of Bingen, and
Catherine of Siena are just a few of the notable leaders and saints that the nunneries and
convents have produced. During the Middle Ages, these women, in particular Catherine of
Siena, played a significant role. For many generations of Christian women, she served as an
inspiration.54

6.4 Women in Monasteries

In monasteries, women had an important role. During the Middle Ages, monasteries provided
many opportunities for women, including the right to study and write. The development of
women's religious orders in the medieval era was more than any other factor that allowed

51
Furlong, Visions and Longings, 6.
52
Furlong, Visions and Longings, 9.
53
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 90.
54
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 91.
women a meaningful place in religious life. Abbess was another privilege attained by women.
Nuns and monks were both under the control and instruction of abbesses. Women were able to
become active teachers, administrators, and other types of leaders because to monasticism.
Additionally, it aided women in living a more spiritually mature life, which was the main goal
of monasticism.55

7. Reflection
The Mystical Movement of women in Medieval era has played an important role in uplifting
the status of women in Christianity. And we can experience those impact till today’s present
context as well. Interestingly, if we analyse in our churches, then we can find out that it is
mostly the women in our churches who are more attached to the mystical experiences in
comparison to the men. In research conducted by Pew Research Center in 2014, it was found
out that American women are more likely than American men to say they pray daily (64% vs.
47%) and attend religious services at least once a week (40% vs. 32%). 56 We cannot deny the
fact that it is the same condition within the most of the Christians and Churches in our country.
Although there are many men as prophets, apostles and mystical leaders at the frontlines, but
the presence of more women mystics in the church is an undeniable truth. This can be the
strong impact of the work of women mystics in medieval ages that we can see the reflection of
their work in today’s time as well.

Conclusion

We think of mysticism in the middle age as an age of Faith, but also it is also an age of Crisis.
The women’s place in the realm of religion somewhat changed because of women mystics.
Mystics women changed their status in their union with God. As we placed above, there were
many women mystics who worked and contributed a lot for the women’s placement in society.
In middles ages, role of women mystics is not standing for the women’s situation alone rather
their contributions are extended for church and state. Although from one perspective, it seems
like their contribution were for the upliftment of women, but it has contributed a lot for the
church and society too.

55
Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity, 91-92.
56
“The Gender Gap in Religion around the World,” Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project (Pew
Research Center, March 22, 2016), last modified March 22, 2016,
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/03/22/the-gender-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/#fn-25285- 1.
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Elizabeth Ruth Obbard, ed., Medieval Women Mystics. USA: New City Press, 2002.

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Imchen, Narola. Women in the History of Christianity. Assam: TDCC, 2010.

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Schaff, Philip, and David S. Schaff. History of the Christian Church: Volume v The Middle
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Szarmach, Paul E. An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe. New York: New York
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