I hope everyone had a great weekend and is looking forward to spring break. I just wanted to share some thoughts on the Bynum essay we had to read for today's class. I thought the reading was very understandable and interesting! In the past, whenever I thought of Christianity, I always think of the countless men that played a role in religious texts (with the exception of the Mary). Now, after reading about female piety and the religious role(s) women played in late medieval times, I have become more interested in learning about religious women.
One thing I have definitely learned is how usual it was for women to write. I think the past two essays we have read make it clear that writing was a way for women to not only express their religious thoughts, ideas, or observations, but it was a way for others to learn. In other words, women's books were used to teach others - similar to the use of books in monastic communities. However, there is one important question asked on page 176: "...how can one hear or see the woman behind the text, or even be confident of intuiting the female readers for whom the model of sanctity was intended? German scholars...have engaged in lengthy argument about whether devotional texts...are genres purveying models and topoi or descriptions of actual religious experience." This quote stands out to me because it questions the many accounts and texts both men and women have written, which forces us to develop our own interpretations, theories, etc. It also refers to how men have written many of the historical and religious accounts that belong to women. Also, reading about the "exterior phenomena" (eg. visions, miracles) really stunned me, not to mention that those with spiritual excitement levitated! This truly demonstrates the power of religious spirituality in late medieval times.
Let me know your thoughts on women's devotion to Christ's humanity and their desire to write religious texts for the purpose of sharing religious experiences. There are many more examples listed in the essay I could give, but will save the conversation for class time. Thanks!
I think what stuck out most to me (and probably everyone else) was the almost graphic language and imagery that a lot of the female religiouses (?) used to describe their devotion to Christ; it was incredibly sensual, almost as if they were seeking the image of a human Christ as a release for their sexuality. Bynum states that "women prayed to be incorporated into Christ's body through the side wound or to take him into their own breasts or wombs and expressed such yearning in corporeal, often erotic, images of sexual union, pregnancy, or suckling." Obedience seemed to be a key element to the life of a female religious; in the Bynum essay, an excerpt from an Anna von Munzingen book "reports that when a sister named Metze Tuscheline prayed to be spared the office of prioress, she heard a voice saying: 'Go back to the chapter room and receive obedience. For you shall know that I prefer obedience. It weighs more before my eyes than Abraham's obedience, for he sacrificed what was outside him while you sacrifice what is inside: that is, your own will.'" Is it possible, perhaps, that the female religious obsession over obedience was an extension of their social status at the time? While it is true that more women were writing than we originally thought, it is also true that many of these women ended up in the church by the order of the men in their lives; they definitely had little say compared to the men, and were expected to be obedient to their husbands and fathers. If they see Jesus as an extension of these figures (especially the husband/lover), wouldn't the natural reaction be to offer unyielding, even extreme obedience?
ReplyDeleteThis obedience notably takes shape in the self-punishment and self-martyring fantasies described in some of the writings of the period, notably Adelheid von Frauenberg desiring that her "body be martyred for the baby Jesus, her kerchief be used for his diaper , her veins woven into a little dress for him,her blood poured out for his bath, and her bones burnt to warm him." It seems that they were pushing this kind of extreme obedience in order to please Christ, which they equated with pleasure for themselves, both in life and upon salvation.
Just my two cents. I don't think this type of passion and ecstasy is necessarily unusual in older religions - I remember reading similar things about the cults of Dionysus in ancient Greece (like in The Bacchae). But the imagery and phrasing used in the excerpts in Bynum's essay definitely shows us a different side of piety that most of us would never know existed in Christianity, for how modest it seems most of the time.
Great observations. I like the connection to the Baccae!
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