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Guardians of the Sacred: The Nuns of Soissons and the Slipper of the Virgin Mary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2020

Anne L. Clark
Anne L. Clark*
Affiliation:
University of Vermont
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Extract

What could it mean to a medieval monastic community to own a valuable object? Certainly, property in general was crucial to the survival of a stable community, ideals of poverty and the thirteenth-century Franciscan experiment in radical poverty notwithstanding. More specifically, what did it mean to own not simply a field or mill that generated revenue, but an object that was believed to have power beyond its material qualities? Such objects—saints’ relics and wonder-working images—did of course also generate revenue, but their meaning and role for the monastic community and the wider society could be much richer than that. And what if the monastic community was a convent of nuns, of professed religious women whose lives were shaped not just by the rule they shared with their male counterparts, but also by the codes, both implicit and increasingly explicit, that constrained the range of women's religious activities?

Although the first two of these questions—about monastic property and the religious value of sacred objects—have been extensively discussed in scholarship on the Middle Ages, a specific focus on gender in relation to monastic ownership of sacred objects has not been widely examined. My focus on gender here is generated by two salient aspects of religious life in the twelfth century, the period of this study. First, there was an increasing articulation of the priesthood as the sole means of mediating divine presence, and of that priesthood as exclusively male.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 76 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 724 - 749
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2007

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Footnotes

1.

I would like to thank members of the Vermont Medieval Colloquium, especially George Dameron, Laurel Broughton, and Sean Field, for their response to an earlier version of this article and for their ongoing friendship and collegiality. I am also very grateful to Bob Pepperman Taylor for his comments and encouragement, to the anonymous reviewers for their very incisive readings, and to Kevin Trainor, for everything.

References

2. Some examples of scholarship on medieval nuns and their sacred objects are Jeffrey F. ‘ Hamburger, “The Liber miraculorum of Unterlinden: An Icon in Its Convent Setting,” in Hamburger, , The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone, 1998)Google Scholar; and Clark, Anne L., “Under Whose Care? The Madonna of San Sisto and the Politics of Women's Monastic Life in 12-13th Century Rome,” in Medieval Constructions in Gender and Identity: Essays in Honor of Joan M. Ferrante, ed. Barolini, Teodolinda (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005)Google Scholar.

3. Macy, Gary, “The Ordination of Women in the Early Middle Ages,” Theological Studies 61:3 (September 2000): 481–507CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clark, Anne L., “The Priesthood of the Virgin Mary: Gender Trouble in the Twelfth Century,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 18:1 (Spring 2002): 5–24Google Scholar. Dyan Elliott persuasively discusses the figure of the priest's wife, with her quasi-sacerdotal character, as the “historical detritus” of the efforts to create a celibate, clerical elite: Elliott, , Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 81–126.Google Scholar

4. Clark, Anne L., Elisabeth of Schönau, a Twelfth-Century Visionary (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 111–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a succinct discussion of the debates about the impact of the eleventh- and twelfth-century reforms on women's monasticism, see Venarde, Bruce L., Women's Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England, 890-1215 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997), 52–57Google Scholar. For continued support for nuns’ prayers, see, for example, Johnson, Penelope D., Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 232–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, “Dead to the World? Death and the Maiden Revisited in Medieval Women's Convent Culture,” in Guidance for Women in Twelfth- Century Convents, trans. Morton, Vera (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), 173–75.Google Scholar

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6. The two documents accounting for the origins of the convent—the Vita S. Drausi and a privilege of Drausin to the convent—are both suspect. See Bourgin, G., La commune de Soissons et le groupe communal soissonais (Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1908), 44Google Scholar, although the foundation by Ebroin and Leutrade remains unquestioned in some studies, for example, Gaillard, Michèle, “Les Origines du monachisme féminin dans le nord et Test de la Gaule (fin Vie siecle—début VIIIe siècle),” in Les religieuses dans le cloître et dans le monde des origines à nos jours: Actes du Deuxième Colloque International du C.E.R.C.O.R. (Saint-Etienne: Centre Europeen de Recherches sur les Congrégations et Ordres Religiuex, 1994), 54Google Scholar; Alain Dubreucq, “Le monachisme féminin dans le nord de la Gaule à l'epoque carolingienne,” in Les religieuses dans le cloître, 67.

7. At least one scholar considers Notre-Dame a double monastery due to this arrangement. See Dubreucq, “Le monachisme féminin,” 62.

8. For the broader context of royal intervention in women's communities in twelfthcentury France, see Venarde, Women's Monasticism, 156-57.

9. There is conflicting evidence about the date of the outbreak of ergotism. Some manuscripts of Hugh Farsit's description of the plague date it to 1127 (for example, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Ms lat. 2873; Paris, BN Ms lat. 16565) and some to 1128 (for example, Paris, BN Ms lat. 14463; Paris, BN Ms lat. 12593). Two texts associated with Saint-Médard, Annates S. Medardi Suessionensibus (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 26:518) and Miracula SS. Gregorii et Sebastiani Suessione in monasterio S. Medardi (Acta Sanctorum, Mar. II, 750-751), date it to 1126. Anselm of Gembloux dates it to 1129 (Continuatio Sigeberti Chronicae, in MGH, SS, vol. 6, 381).

10. Signori, Gabriela, Maria zwischen Kathedrale, Kloster und Welt: Hagiographische und historiographische Annäherungen an eine hochmittelalterliche Wunderpredigt (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1995)Google Scholar; Signori, , “The Miracle Kitchen and its Ingredients: A Methodical and Critical Approach to Marian Shrine Wonders (10th-13th century),” Hagiographica 3 (1996): 277–303Google Scholar; Signori, , “Marienbilder im Vergleich: Marienische Wunderbücher zwischen Weltklerus, städtischer Ständevielfalt und ländlichen Subsistenzproblemen (10.-13. Jahrhundert),” in Maria—Abbild oder Vorbild: Zur Sozialgeschichte mittelalterlicher Marienverehrung, ed. Röckelein, Hedwig, Opitz, Claudia, and Bauer, Dieter R. (Tübingen: Fuldaer Verlagsanstalt, 1990), 58–90Google Scholar. On Marian pilgrimage more generally, see Signori, , “La bienheureuse polysémie Miracles et pèlerinages à la Vierge: Pourvoir thaumaturgique et modèles pastoraux (Xe-Xiie siècles),” in Marie: Le culte de la Vierge dans la société médiévale, ed. Iogna-Prat, DominiquePalazzo, Éric and Russo, Daniel (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996), 591–617Google Scholar.

11. Signori acknowledges that we don't know his motivation for composing the text (Maria zwischen, 129, n. 22), although she tends to treat this text like the other miracle collections designed to support cathedral priorities (for example, Maria zwischen, 29, and “The Miracle Kitchen,” 285). On Hugh, see Vernet, A., “'Loisirs’ d'un chanoine de Soissons,” Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de France (1959): 108–09.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. “Vidimus earn et nos….” Farsit, Hugh, Libellus de miraculis b. Mariae Virginis in urbe Suessionensi, in Patrologia Latina, vol. 179, col. 1782Google Scholar. Ironically, this account with Hugh's claim to personal testimony is a story that had circulated widely in oral form and even in written form, in at least one place with its attribution to a different Marian shrine. Hugh coyly acknowledges the possibility that “similar” miracles may have occurred before (ibid., col. 1781). For a discussion of the various versions of this story, see Signori, , Maria zwischen, 138–49Google Scholar.

13. Bull, Marcus, The Miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour: Analysis and Translation (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 1999), 43–55.Google Scholar

14. Mathilde was daughter of one of the principal lords of the province and served as abbess from 1116-43.

15. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1789, 1792, 1793.

16. Ibid., col. 1778.

17. Ibid., col. 1779.

18. Ibid.

19. Reading annotati from Paris, BN lat. 16565.

20. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1779-80.

21. According to Michel Germain, who wrote the standard history of the convent, the circumstances of the relic acquisition are unknown. He refers to some opinions about it: Some people say the abbey possessed it from the time of its foundation; others say it was a present from Charlemagne to his sister, the Abbess Gisele. Presumably these are opinions of Germain's contemporaries. He states that the earliest evidence for the slipper relic is the ergotism narratives of Hugh Farsit and Anselm of Gembloux. See Germain, Michel, Histoire de l'Abbaye Royale de Notre-Dame de Soissons (Paris: Coignard, 1675), 358Google Scholar. The Charlemagne explanation seems unlikely given medieval silence about it, yet he was a collector of relics, especially from “the east,” including Marian relics. He was said to have a Marian veil in his chapel at Aachen. See Carr, Annemarie Weyl, “Threads of Authority: The Virgin Mary's Veil in the Middle Ages,” in Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture, ed. Gordon, Stewart (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 71.Google Scholar

22. See Gouttebroze, Jean-Guy, Le Précieux Sang de Fécamp: Origine et développement d'un my the chrétien. Essais sur le Moyen Age 23 (Paris: Honore Champion, 2000).Google Scholar

23. Guibert of Nogent, On Saints and Their Relics, trans. Head, Thomas, in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, ed. Head, Thomas (New York: Garland, 2000), 399–427Google Scholar. This treatise did not circulate widely, but given Hugh's temporal and geographical proximity to the circle of Guibert, it is likely that he at least knew of it.

24. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1780.

25. Head, Thomas, Hagiography and the Cult of the Saints: The Diocese of Orleans, 800-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 165–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Despite canonical prohibitions, laypeople still managed to touch and even kiss relics; see Herrmann-Mascard, Nicole, Les Reliques des saints: Formation coutumière d'un droit (Paris: Editions Klincksieck, 1975), 203–16.Google Scholar

26. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1780.

27. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1794. On traditional practices of creating new relics by contact with saints’ tombs, see Herrmann-Mascard, Les Reliques des saints, 45-47.

28. Rawcliffe, Carole, “Curing Bodies and Healing Souls: Pilgrimage and the Sick in Medieval East Anglia,” in Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan, ed. Morris, Colin and Roberts, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 122.Google Scholar

29. The Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln, ed. and trans. Douie, Decima L. and Farmer, Hugh (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1962), 2:169–70.Google Scholar

30. For Hugh's learning, see Hugh Farmer, “Introduction,” in The Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln, xi.

31. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1780.

32. Signori, “The Miracle Kitchen,” 299. For general patterns of gender ratios in shrines of northern and southern France, see 286-87.

33. Smith, Julia, “Women at the Tomb: Access to Relic Shrines in the Early Middle Ages,” in The World of Gregory of Tours, ed. Mitchell, Kathleen and Wood, Ian. Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions: Medieval and Early Modern Peoples 8 (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 163–80.Google Scholar

34. Herrmann-Mascard, Les Reliques des saints, 168-75.

35. Burchard of Worms, Decretorum libri viginti, in Patrologia Latina, vol. 140, col. 693.

36. Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 49–58.Google Scholar

37. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1786.

38. Sigal, Pierre André, “Un aspect du culte des saints: Le chatiment divin aux Xle et Xlle siècles d'apres la littérature hagiographique du Midi de la France,” in La religion populaire en Languedoc du XHIe siècle a la moitie du XlVe siècle. Cahiers de Fanjeaux 11 (Toulouse: fidouard Privat, 1976), 39–59.Google Scholar

39. Sigal, “Un Aspect du culte des saints,” 58, n. 42.

40. For an interesting attempt to analyze the actual medical aspects of miracle collections from relic shrines, see Rawcliffe, “Curing Bodies and Healing Souls.“

41. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1784.

42. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1788. Referring to a different incident, Signori incisively notes that the substantial number of stories told about women in this text should not lead us to assume that Hugh did not share the negative views of women often found in contemporary ecclesiastical texts (“The Miracle Kitchen,” 299).

43. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1789, 1792, 1793.

44. Guibert of Nogent, On Saints and Their Relics, 408.

45. The construction and architecture of the new church are discussed in Barnes, Carl F., “The Documentation for Notre-Dame de Soissons,” Gesta 15 (1976): 61–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Héliot, Pierre, “Les Eglises de l'abbaye de Notre-Dame a Soissons et l'architecture romane dans le nord de la France capetienne,” Revue beige d'archaeologie et d'histoire de I'art 37 (1968): 49–88Google Scholar. Heliot also refers to the fundraising efforts of Mathilde II.

46. For a list of the properties, see Saincir, Jules, Le Diocèse de Soissons. Tome Premier: Des origines au XVIIIe siècle (fivreux: Imprimerie Herissey, 1935), 82.Google Scholar

47. On women commissioning men to write religious and historical texts, see Ferrante, Joan M., To the Glory of Her Sex: Women's Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1997).Google Scholar

48. A brief sketch of his career is in Sandron, Dany, La cathédrale de Soissons: Architecture du pouvoir (Paris: Picard, 1998), 30Google Scholar. To be used with caution is Jacquemin, Louis, “Annales de la vie de Joscelin de Vierzi, 57e eveque de Soissons,” in Quatrièmes Melanges d'Histoire du Moyen Age 20, ed. Luchaire, Achille (Paris: Alcan, 1905), 1–161Google Scholar. The relationship of Bishop Josselin to Notre-Dame is ambiguous. He was in the process of raising funds for the major building campaign for the cathedral, and it is possible that he would have seen the activities at Notre-Dame as competition. Germain attributes to him a very active and supportive role in the proceedings at Notre-Dame during 1128; that seems optimistic based on the evidence, but it accords well with Germain's generally positive view of the convent's history and its place in the diocese.

49. The anonymous hagiographer of St. Médard, in Miracula SS. Gregorii et Sebastiani AASS, Mar. II, 750-751, discussed below.

50. Hugh Farsit, Libellus de miraculis, col. 1798.

51. It is not surprising to see Hugh's name on a charter of 1140 confirming a donation to St.-Jean-des-Vignes; an 1135 charter unrelated to his abbey is more noteworthy. See Jacquemin, “Annales de la vie de Joscelin de Vierzi,” 48, 76.

52. For example, Paris, BN Ms lat. 2873 (late twelfth-century manuscript owned by a Carmelite convent in Paris), and Paris, BN Ms lat. 14463 (twelfth century, abbey of St. Victor in Paris).

53. See now Gautier de Coinci: Miracles, Music, and Manuscripts, ed. Krause, Kathy M. and Stones, Alison. Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54. Anselm of Gembloux, Continuatio Sigeberti Chronicae, MGH, SS, 6:382.

55. Anselm of Gembloux, Continuatio, 6:383.

56. The hole or opening (foramen) venerated here as a connection between heaven and earth may evoke a traditional cultic practice. Tomb-shrines were sometimes constructed with foramina or apertures to allow the faithful to get closer to the saints’ relics. A well-known testimony is in Bede's description of the tomb of St. Chad (Historiae ecclesiasticae gentis Anglorum, IV, 3). See Nilson, Ben, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 1998), 44–45.Google Scholar

57. The manuscript, British Library, Royal MS 6 B. x., fol. 38, says only “gloriosu[s] re[x] francorum ludovicu[s].” Ward, H. L. D., Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1893), 2:644Google Scholar, suggests Louis VII, who reigned from 1137-80, although Louis VI seems a better fit in terms of chronology (he reigned during the ergotism epidemic) and general biography (Louis VII was famed for his religious inclinations, which would make his public doubt about miracles unlikely). Ward mistakes the site of the miracle, referring to the cathedral of Soissons.

58. British Library, Royal MS 6 B. x., fol. 38.

59. Becquet, Jean, “Abbayes et prieures. Tome XVII: Diocese de Soissons (Province de Reims),” Revue Mabillon 61:303–4 (1986): 177–83.Google Scholar

60. “Pieuse fraude” is used by D. Delanchy in his overview of the cult of St. Gregory at St.-Médard. See Delanchy, , “Étude Historique,” in Saint-Médard: Trésors d'une abbaye royale, ed. Defente, Denis (Paris: Somogy Éditions d'art, 1996), 117Google Scholar. For various developments in the hagiographical traditions of St.-Médard, see Lifshitz, Felice, “The ‘Exodus of Holy Bodies’ Reconsidered: The Translation of the Relics of St. Gildard of Rouen to Soissons,” Analecta Bollandiana 110 (1992): 329–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gaiffier, B. de, “Les sources latines d'un Miracle de Gautier de Coincy: I. Apparitions de Ste. Léocadie et de la Vierge à S. Ildephonse,” Analecta Bollandiana 71 (1953): 100–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Müller, E., “Die Nithard- Interpolation und die Urkunden- und Legendenfälschungen im St. Medardus-Kloster bei Soissons,” Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 34 (1909): 681–722.Google Scholar

61. Competing claims to possess the same relics was another problem discussed by Guibert of Nogent (On Saints and Their Relics, 417). For contradictory claims to possess the relics of Saints Sebastian and Gregory I, see Delehaye, Hippolyte, Cinq leçons sur la méthode hagiographique. Subsidia Hagiographica, 21 (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1934), 84–87Google Scholar. Delehaye's goal is to ascertain which claims were true. For a discussion of a dispute between two abbeys who claimed to have the same relic, in this case the body of St. Loup, see Héliot, Pierre and Chastang, Marie-Laure, “Quêtes et voyages de relique au profit des églises françhises du moyen âge,”(suite et fin) Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique 60 (1965): 18–19.Google Scholar

62. Delanchy, “Étude Historique,” 117.

63. At least as early as the eighth century, Pope Gregory I was said to have divided the people of Rome into seven groups to pray for release from a plague that had followed a flood of the Tiber (Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum, ed. Georg Waitz. MGH, Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum [Hannover, 1878], Lib. 3, ch. 24).

64. Miracula SS. Gregorii et Sebastiani, 750-751.

65. On gender competition between miracle stories of the Virgin Mary and male saints, see Smith, Katherine Allen, “Mary or Michael? Saint-Switching, Gender, and Sanctity in a Medieval Miracle of Childbirth,” Church History 74:4 (December 2005): 758–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66. Miracula SS. Gregorii et Sebastiani, 751.

67. Ibid.

68. Ibid., 750.

69. This sanctimonious rejection of fundraising could also be in response to the critique of profiteering by relics, raised by Guibert of Nogent, who had attacked without naming the excesses of St.-Médard. See Delanchy, “Étude Historique,” 118, and above, n. 21.

70. Delanchy, “Étude Historique,” 118-21.

71. There is no reference to the role of Gregory or Saint-Médard in Anselm's stories about the plague in 1129 (Anselm of Gembloux, Continuatio, 381-83). In the next installment of the chronicle (Anselm's ends at 1135), the “divine fire” was said to return in 1141, and many afflicted were relieved “through the intercession of Mary, the holy mother of God, and other saints” (Continuatio Gemblacensis, in MGH, SS, 6:381).

72. Delanchy, “Étude Historique,” 30.

73. Annales S. Medardi Suessionensibus, in MGH, SS, 26:518-22.

74. Typical again of the vengeance miracles described by Sigal, “Un aspect du culte.“

75. Remensnyder, Amy G., “Legendary Treasure at Conques: Reliquaries and Imaginative Memory,” Speculum 71:4 (October 1996): 905–906CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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77. For the emergence of a literate culture, see Stock, Brian, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983)Google Scholar. For the expansion of textual record-making, see Clanchy, M. T., From Memory to Written Record: England, 1066-1307 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979).Google Scholar

78. The contemporary miracle collection from the cathedral of Laon, written by an outsider, Herman, the abbot Saint-Martin, Tournai, is similar in this regard, although Herman had written earlier hagiographical works at the request of the bishop of Laon, and thus his selection is better understood than Hugh's. On Herman, see Bull, The Miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour, 44-45.

79. On nuns’ texts about their communities, see Winston-Allen, Anne, Convent Chronicles: Women Writing about Women and Reform in the Late Middle Ages (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004)Google Scholar. On tensions about men's roles in creating texts about women, see Mooney, Catherine M., “Voice, Gender, and the Portrayal of Sanctity,” in Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters, ed. Mooney, Catherine M. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Johnson, Lynn Staley, “The Trope of the Scribe and the Question of Literary Authority in the Works of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe,” Speculum 66:4 (October 1991): 820–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80. For the use of relics to negotiate social tensions, see, for example, Brown, Peter, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981)Google Scholar, and Geary, Patrick J., Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

81. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession, 142-46 and throughout.