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The Body of Christ in the Later Middle Ages: A Reply to Leo Steinberg

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Caroline Walker Bynum
Caroline Walker Bynum*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

Most of us who inhabit the western, post-Christian world are so accustomed to pictures of the Madonna and child or of the Holy Family that we hardly notice the details. When we encounter such images in museums, on posters, or on Christmas cards, we tend to respond sentimentally if at all. We note whether the baby looks like a baby or not. We are pleased if the figures appear happy and affectionate. Perhaps we even feel gratitude for the somewhat banal support of an institution—the human family—that seems worn a little thin in the modern world. But we are not shocked. Recognizing that the Incarnation is a central Christian tenet, we feel no surprise that Christian artists throughout the western tradition should have painted God as a male baby.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1986 , pp. 399 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1986

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References

1 This essay was first delivered as a University lecture at Cornell University in November, 1985, and was subsequently presented at Brooklyn College and Columbia University. I am grateful to my hosts at those institutions: Elizabeth A. R. Brown, Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Eugene Rice and Robert Somerville. I would also like to thank Stephen Greenblatt, John Najemy, and Richard Trexler for their suggestions and criticisms. I owe special gratitude to Colin Eisler, who read a draft of this article with patient attention to detail and gave sage advice. Finally, I thank Patricia Fortini Brown, Anna Kartsonis, and Ruth Mellinkoff, who guided a novice in the field of art history through the complex process of acquiring photographs. Some of the material in this essay is explored at greater length and from a different perspective in my forthcoming book, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley 1986), especially chapters ii, ix and x.

2 Although art historians have long cautioned against doing so, historians and social scientists have tended to read art (often quite creatively) as evidence for social history. See, for example, Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, tr. Robert Baldick (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; Goody, Jack, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 153-56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herlihy, David, Medieval Households (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), p. 12 Google Scholar.

3 See Schiller, Gertrud, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, vol. IV. 2: Maria (Gütersloh, 1980), plates 751-56 and pp. 157-60Google Scholar.

4 Mirella Levi d'Ancona, The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, Monographs on Archaeology and Fine Arts, 7 (New York, 1957).

5 On this point generally, see Lane, Barbara G., The Altar and the Altarpiece: Sacramental Themes in Early Netherlandish Painting (New York, 1984)Google Scholar.

6 See, for example, the reviews of Steinberg by Wolheim, Richard, The New York Times Book Review (April 29, 1984), pp. 13–14 Google Scholar; Chastel, André, The New York Review of Books, 31.8 (Nov. 22, 1984), pp. 25–27 Google Scholar; Summers, David, Times Literary Supplement (Nov. 23, 1984), p. 1346 Google Scholar; and Rosand, David, The New Republic, 190 (June 11, 1984), pp. 29–33 Google Scholar.

7 Steinberg, Leo, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion (New York, 1983)Google Scholar (first published as a special issue, October, 25 [Summer, 1983]), especially figures 4, 13, 16, 42, 47, 49, 80, 215.

8 Steinberg, Sexuality, pp. 98-108.

9 Ibid., pp. 127-30. A particularly fascinating example of this motif, not discussed by Steinberg, is a painting of the vision of St. Bernard by the Master of the Life of the Virgin, now in the Wallraf-Richartz museum; for a reproduction, see Late Gothic Art from Cologne: A Loan Exhibition, April 5-June 1, 1977 (London: The National Gallery, 1977). plate 14. In this picture, the baby reaches for the breast, which Mary, however, offers not to him but to the viewer. Bernard points to the baby's genitals, which the baby himself covers.

10 Steinberg, Sexuality, pp. 58-61 and 160-62. And see below n. 20.

11 On devotion to the holy foreskin, see Fawtier, Robert and Canet, Louis, La Double expérience de Catherine Benincasa (sainte Catherine de Sienne) (Paris, 1948), pp. 245-46Google Scholar; and Peter Dinzelbacher, “Die ‘Vita et revelationes’ der Wiener Begine Agnes Blannbekin (+ 1315) im Rahmen der Viten-und Offenbarungsliteratur ihrer Zeit,” in Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter G. Bauer, Wissenschaftliche Studientagung der Akademie der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart 22.-25. Februar 1984 in Weingarten (Ostfildern, 1985), pp. 152-53.

12 In his interpretation of Renaissance preaching, Steinberg has been much influenced by O'Malley, John W., Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome: Rhetoric, Doctrine and Reform in the Sacred Orators of the Papal Court, c. 1450-1521 (Durham, 1979)Google Scholar. The Renaissance sermons Steinberg quotes (Sexuality, pp. 61-65) all emphasize pain and bleeding, not sexuality.

13 See, for example, David Toolan, review of Steinberg, Commonweal (Dec. 14, (84), pp. 692-94. And see n. 6 above.

14 See Boswell, John, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago, 1980)Google Scholar.

15 Life of Lukardis of Oberweimar in Analecta Bollandiana, 18 (1899), 337-38. The account of Margaret's kiss is in Life of Benevenuta of Bojano, chap, x, par: 82, in Acta sanctorum [hereafter AASS], ed. the Bollandists, 3rd ed. (Paris, V. Palmé, 1863ff.), October, XIII, 172. Margaret experiences an erotic kiss from Christ in Life of Margaret, chap, iii, par: 15 (20), AASS, August, v, 851. On women's erotic relationship with Christ, see Petroff, Elizabeth, Consolation of the Blessed (NewYork, 1979), pp. 66–78 Google Scholar.

16 Hadewijch, Vision 7, in Hadewijch: The Complete Works, trans. Columba Hart (New York, 1980), pp. 281-82; see also Bynum, Caroline Walker, “Women Mystics and charistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century,” Women's Studies, 11 (1984), pp. 179–214 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 180, 191-92.

17 See Van Engen, John H., Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 50–53 Google Scholar.

18 Catherine of Siena, Le lettere de S. Caterina da Siena, ridotte a miglior lezione e in ordine nuovo disposte con note di Niccolò Tommaseo a cura di Piero Misciattelli, 6 vols. (Siena, 1913-22), letter 221, III, 337; letter 50, I,.236; letter 261, IV, 146; letter 143, II, 337-38; Fawtier and Canet, Double expérience, pp. 245-46.

19 E. James Mundy, “Gerard David's Rest on the Flight into Egypt: Further Additions to Grape Symbolism,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, 12.4(1981-82), 211-22.

20 There is considerable dispute about the attribution of this pietà. It is usually given to Jean Malouel. For a discussion, see Chatelet, Albert, Early Dutch Painting: Painting in the Northern Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century, trans. C. Brown and A. Turner (New York, 1981), pp. 16–25 Google Scholar. For another example of this motif, see Hiller, Irmgard and Horst Vey with Tilman Falk, Katalog der Deutschen und Niederländischen Gemälde bis 1550 … im Wallraf-Richartz Museum und im Kunstgewerbemuseum der Stadt Köln, Kataloge des Wallraf-Richartz Museum, 5 (Cologne, 1969), plate 154Google Scholar.

21 See below nn. 49, 50, 78.

22 Catherine, Le lettere, ed. Misciattelli, letter 87, II, 90-92. See also letter 329, V, 106-107.

23 On Margaret Porete, see Guarnieri, Romana, ed., “Il ‘Miroir des simples âmes’ di Margherita Porete,” Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà, 4 (1965), 501–635 Google Scholar, and Dronke, Peter, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (+ 203) to Marguerite Porete (+ 1310) (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 202-28Google Scholar. On Eckhart, see Otto Langer, “Zur dominikanischen Frauenmystik im spätmittelalterlichen Deutschland,” in Dinzelbacher and Bauer, Frauenmystik, pp. 341-46. On Gerson, see Bynum, Caroline Walker, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1982), pp. 135-36Google Scholar. See also Tauler, Johann, sermons 31 and 33, in Die Predigten Taulers: aus der Engelberger und der Freiburger Handschrift sowie aus Schmidts Abschriften der ehemaligen Strassburger Handschriften, ed. Ferdinand Vetter (Berlin, 1910), pp. 310-11Google Scholar and 130. On male suspicion of female religiosity generally, see Vauchez, André, La Sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge d'après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques, Bibliothèque des études française d'Athènes et de Rome, 241 (Rome, 1981), pp. 439-48Google Scholar.

24 See Browe, Peter, Die Eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters, Breslauer Studien zur historischen Theologie, NF4 (Breslau, 1938), pp. 110-11Google Scholar ; McDonnell, Ernest W., The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture with Special Emphasis on the Belgian Scene (1954; rpt. New York, 1969), p. 315 Google Scholar.

25 On the prominence of bodily phenomena in women's spirituality, see Peter Dinzelbacher, “Europäische Frauenmystik des Mittelalters,” in Dinzelbacher and Bauer, Frauenmystik, pp. 11-23; Franz Wöhrer, “Aspekte der englischen Frauenmystik im späten 14. und beginnenden 15. Jahrhundert,” ibid., pp. 314-40; Thurston, Herbert, The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism (Chicago, 1952)Google Scholar. See also Carozzi, Claude, “Douceline et les autres,” in La Religion populaire en Languedoc du XIIIIe siècle à la moitié du XlVe siècle, Cahiers de Fanjeaux, II (Toulouse, 1976), pp. 251-67Google Scholar.

26 For a comment on the modern tendency to reduce all bodily phenomena (even mystical) to the sexual, see Weil, Simone, The Notebooks of Simone Weil, trans. Arthur Wills, 2 vols. (London, 1956), II, 472 Google Scholar: “To reproach mystics with loving God by means of the faculty of sexual love is as though one were to reproach a painter with making pictures by means of colors composed of material substances. We haven't anything else with which to love… . “

27 See n. 23 above. The new book by Brown, Judith C., Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (New York, 1986)Google Scholar, is therefore profoundly misleading. It mistakenly places the behavior it considers in the context of sexual orientation. But what contemporaries asked about the actions of Benedetta Carlini, a seventeenth-century Theatine abbess, was not whether they had an erotic component directed toward a woman but whether Benedetta Carlini suffered from demonic possession or practiced fraud. “Feigned sanctity” was an important category in seventeenth-century inquisitorial trials, and Benedetta herself retreated, under interrogation, to the claim that she was possessed. See the review of Brown by Mary R. O'Neil, forthcoming in Sixteenth-Century fournal.

28 Steinberg, Sexuality, p. 65. To raise the issue of texts is not to take issue with Steinberg's position that the art object itself is a “primary text,” not merely an illustration of a theological tenet. I would myself agree that many of the paintings Steinberg discusses are direct evidence about the theological significance of body. But I also hold that the pictures are about more bodily aspects than Steinberg notices. See, for example, n. 80 below.

29 There is a large amount of recent literature on this topic. See, for example, Morris, Colin, The Discovery of the Individual: 1050-1200 (1972; rpt. New York, 1973)Google Scholar; Constable, Giles, “Twelfth-Century Spirituality and the Late Middle Ages,” Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 5: Proceedings of the Southern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Summer, 1969 (1971), 27–60 Google Scholar; Bynum, “Women Mystics,” pp. 199-202; Kieckhefer, Richard, Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth-Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu (Chicago, 1984), pp. 89–121 Google Scholar. On the increasingly positive sense of body generally in medieval thought, see Bernstein, Alan E., “Political Anatomy,” University Publishing (Winter, 1978), pp. 8–9 Google Scholar.

30 Foligno, Angela of, Le Livre de l‘expérience des vrais fidèles: texte latine publié d'après le manuscrit d'Assise, ed. and trans. M.-J. Ferré and L. Baudry (Paris, 1927), par. 167, pp. 382-84Google Scholar. There is no critical edition of Angela's works and the extant texts differ widely from each other.

31 Oingt, Marguerite of, Les oeuvres de Marguerite d'Oingt, ed. and trans. Antonin Duraffour, Pierre Gardette, and P. Durdilly (Paris, 1965), p. 147 Google Scholar; also 139.

32 See Cardman, Francine, “The Medieval Question of Women and Orders,” The Thomist, 42 (1978), 582-99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rézette, J., “Le sacerdoce et la femme chez saint Bonaventure,” Antonianum, 51 (1976), 520-27Google Scholar.

33 See Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. E. Friedberg, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1879-81), I. 2, causa 33, q. 5, chaps. 12-17, cols. 1254-55; Aquinas, Thomas, Summa theologiae, ed. Blackfriars, XIII (New York, 1964), pt. I, q. 92, arts. 1-2, pp. 34–41 Google Scholar, and q. 93, art. 4, pp. 58-61. It is worth pointing out that neither male nor female theologians argued against the denial of priesthood to women. Indeed Hildegard of Bingen suggested that women held a different (and complementary) role as brides of Christ (i.e., mystics). See Bynum, Jesus as Mother, pp. 91-94, 141-42, and Elisabeth Gossman, “Das Menschenbild der Hildegard von Bingen und Elisabeth von Schönau vor dem Hintergrund der frühscholastischen Anthropologic,” in Dinzelbacher and Bauer, Frauenmystik, pp. 24—47.

34 In a now classic study, the great Dutch historian argued that symbolism in the later Middle Ages became florid, mechanical, and empty of true experiential content; see Huizinga, Johan, The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the XIVth and XVth Centuries, trans. F. Hopman (1924; rpt. Garden City, N. Y., 1956)Google Scholar. There is, of course, some truth to the argument; see, for example, Rapp, Francis, “Zur Spiritualität in elsässischen Frauenklostern am Ende des Mittelalters,” in Dinzelbacher and Bauer, Frauenmystik, pp. 347-65Google Scholar. But it is more accurate to describe late medieval piety as deeply experiential; see my forthcoming book, Holy Feast and Holy Fast.

35 Schiller, Ikonographie, vol. IV, I: Die Kirche, plates 211, 213, 228-240, 260.

36 Bernard of Clairvaux, sermon 9, par. 5-6, and sermon 10, par. 3, on the Song of Songs, in Sancti Bemardi opera, ed. J. Leclercq, C. H. Talbot and H. M. Rochais, I (Rome, 1957), 45-46, 49-50; see also sermon 23, par. 2, at I, 139-140, and sermon 41, par. 5-6, at II, 31-32.

37 William of St. Thierry, Exposé sur le Cantique des Cantiques, ed. J. M. Déchanet, Sources chrétiennes, 82, séric des textes monastiques d'Occident, 8 (Paris, 1962), chap. 38, pp. 122-24.

38 William of St. Thierry, Meditativae Orationes, chap, viii, Patrologia latina, ed. J.-P. Migne [hereafter PL], Vol. 180, col. 236A; trans. Sister Penelope, The Works of William of St. Thierry, I: On Contemplating God, Cistercian Fathers Series, 3 (Spencer, Mass., 1971). 152-53.

39 Catherine, Le lettere, ed. Misciattelli, letter 86, II, 81-82. For a similar use of the metaphor by a male writer, see The Monk of Fame: The Meditations of a Fourteenth-Century Monk, ed. Hugh Farmer and trans, by a Benedictine of Stanbrook, The Benedictine Studies (Baltimore, 1961), pp. 64, 73-74. Other examples of the Jesus-asmother motif may be found in Bynum, Jesus as Mother, pp. 110-69, and Valerie Lagorio, “Variations on the Theme of God's Motherhood in Medieval English Mystical and Devotional Writings,” Studia mystica, 8 (1985), 15-37.

40 Bradley, Ritamary, “The Motherhood Theme in Julian of Norwich,” Fourteenth-Century English Mystics Newsletter, 2.4 (1976), 25–30 Google Scholar; Børresen, Kari Elizabeth, “Christ notre mère, la théologie de Julienne de Norwich,” Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschafi, 13 (1978), 320-29Google Scholar; Barker, Paula S. D., “The Motherhood of God in Julian of Norwich's Theology,” Downside Review, 100 (1982), 290–304 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pelphrey, Brant, Love Was His Meaning: The Theology and Mysticism of Julian of Norwich, Salzburg Studies in English Literature: Elizabethan and Renaissance Studies, 92.4 (Salzburg, 1982)Google Scholar.

41 Julian, The Long Text, chap. 57, revelation 14, in A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich, ed. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, Studies and Texts, 35,2 parts (Toronto, 1978), pt. 2, pp. 579-80; trans, by Colledge and Walsh in Julian of Norwich: Showings (New York, 1978), p. 292.

42 See Caroline Walker Bynum, “ ‘… And Woman His Humanity': Female Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages,” in Bynum, Caroline W., Harrell, Stevan and Richman, Paula, eds., Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols (Boston, 1986)Google Scholar. Colledge and Walsh have stressed that this idea has theological roots in William of St. Thierry; see intro. to A Book of Showings, pt. i, pp. 153-62.

43 Marguerite, Oeuvres, pp. 77-79.

44 Schiller, Ikonographie, IV. 1: Die Kirche, plates 217-219.

45 Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, trans. Suzanne Noffke (New York, 1980), pp. 206-207; see also p. 210. For other authors who stress the same point, see Bynum, “Women Mystics,” p. 214n. 118.

46 Børresen, Kari Elisabeth, Subordination et équivalence: nature et rôle de la femme d'après Augustin et Thomas d'Aquin (Oslo, 1968)Google Scholar; McLaughlin, Eleanor, “Equality of Souls, Inequality of Sexes: Women in Medieval Theology,” Religion and Sexism: Images of Women in the Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. R. Reuther (New York, 1974), pp. 213-66Google Scholar; d'Alverny, Marie-Thérèse, “Comment les théologiens et les philosophes voient la femme?”, La femme dans les civilisations des Xe-XIIIe siècles: Actes du colloque tenu à Poitiers les 23-2$ septembre 1976, in Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 20 (1977), 105-29Google Scholar.

47 Hildegard, Liber divinorum operum, bk. i, chap, iv, par. 100, PL 197, col. 885; idem, Liber vitae meritorum, bk. iv, c. 32, in Analecta sacra, ed. Pitra, J.-B., VIII: Analecta sanctae Hildegardis… . (Monte Cassino, 1882), 158 Google Scholar; Newman, Barbara Jane, “ O Feminea Forma: God and Woman in the Works of St. Hildegard (1098-1179),” Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1981 Google Scholar; Dronke, Peter, Women Writers, pp. 144–201 Google Scholar; and Gossmann, , “Das Menschenbild der Hildegard.” For Elizabeth's vision, see Die Visionen der hl. Elisabeth und die Schriften der Aebte Ekbert und Emecho von Schönau, ed. F. W. E. Roth (Brünn, 1884), pp. 60ffGoogle Scholar.

48 Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, pt. 2, vision 6, ed. Adelgundis Führkötter and A. Carlevaris, Corpus christianorum: continuatio medievalis, 43, 2 vols. (Turnhout, 1978), I, 225-306, esp. 231. For ecclesia and humanitas in miniatures, see Schiller, Ikonographie, IV. 1: Die Kirche, plates 211, 236, 260. For texts in which Christ marries humanitas, see Ruysbroeck, Jan van, The Spiritual Espousals, trans. Eric Colledge, Classics of the Contemplative Life (New York, n.d.), p. 43 Google Scholar, and idem, “Le miroir du salut éternel,” chap, vii, in Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck l'Admirable, trans, by the Benedictines of St.-Paul of Wisques, III, 3rded. (Brussels, 1948), 82-83.

49 Lesky, Erna, Die Zeugungs- und Vererbungslehren der Antike und ihr Nachwirken (Mainz, 1951)Google Scholar; Needham, Joseph, A History of Embryology, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 37–74 Google Scholar; Preus, Anthony, “Galen's Criticism of Aristotle's Conception Theory,” Journal of the History of Biology, 10 (1977), 65–85 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Thomas Laqueur, “Orgasm, Generation and the Politics of Reproductive Biology,” Representations, to appear; and idem, The Female Orgasm and the Body Politic, work in progress.

50 Preus, “Galen's Criticism“; Laqueur, Female Orgasm and Body Politic; Bullough, Vern L., “Medieval Medical and Scientific Views of Women,” Viator, 4 (1973), 487-93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benton, John F., “Clio and Venus: An Historical View of Medieval Love,” The Meaning of Courtly Love, ed. F. X. Newman (Albany, 1969), p. 32 Google Scholar; and Wood, Charles T., “The Doctors’ Dilemma: Sin, Salvation and The Menstrual Cycle in Medieval Thought,” Speculum, 56 (1981), 710-27CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

51 Levi d'Ancona, Immaculate Conception.

52 On Mechtild, see Bynum, Jesus as Mother, pp. 229, 233-34, 244.

53 See Bynum, “Women Mystics,” p. 204; Dumoutet, Edouard, Corpus Domini: Aux sources de la piété eucharistique médiévale (Paris, 1942), pp. 77–79 Google Scholar; Marguerite of Oingt, Oeuvres, pp. 98-99; Suso, Henry, Büchlein der Ewigen Weisheit, c. 16, in Deutsche Schrif ten im Auftrag der Württembergischen Kommission für Landesgeschichte, ed. K. Bihlmeyer (Stuttgart, 1907), p. 264 Google Scholar; Assisi, Francis of, Opuscula sancti patris Francisci Assisiensis, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi, 1, 2nd ed. (Quaracchi, 1949), p. 123 Google Scholar; Lane, Altar and Altarpiece, pp. 12-35.

54 Dumoutet, Corpus Domini, pp. 77-79. See also Braun, Joesph, Der christliche Altar in seinergeschichtlichen Entwicklung, 2 vols. (Munich, 1924), II, 624 Google Scholar. Plates 329, 333, 334, 336, 346, 360 and 361 give a number of examples of the prominence of Mary on retables. This motif tends to associate Mary's conceiving of Christ with the moment of the consecration.

55 Lane, Altar and Altarpiece, p. 28. See also Baumer, Christoph, “Die Schreinmadonna,” Marian Literary Studies, 9 (1977), 239-72Google Scholar.

56 Lane, , Altar and Altarpiece, pp. 71–72 Google Scholar. Purtle, Carol J., The Marian Paintings of Jan van Eyck (Princeton, 1982), pp. 13–15 Google Scholar, 27-29, and passim.

57 Marrow, James H., Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: A Study of the Transformation of Sacred Metaphor into Descriptive Narrative (Kortrijk, 1979)Google Scholar; Rothkrug, Lionel, “Popular Religion and Holy Shrines: Their Influence on the Origins of the German Reformation and their Role in German Cultural Development,” in James Obelkevich, ed., Religion and the People, 800-1700 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979), p. 29 Google Scholar.

58 See Thurston, Physical Phenomena; Dinzelbacher, “Europäische Frauenmystik“; idem, Vision und Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1981); Bell, Rudolph M., Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bynum, Caroline Walker, “Fast, Feast, and Flesh: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women,” Representations, 11 (Summer, 1985), 1–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 On eucharistic miracles, see Browe, Die Wunder, and Bynum, “Women Mystics,” p. 182. On stigmata, see Thurston, Physical Phenomena; Gourbeyre, Antoine Imbert, La Stigmatisation: L'extase divine et les miracles de Lourdes: Réponse aux lihrespenseurs, 2 vols. (Clermont-Ferrand, 1894)Google Scholar; Debongnie, Pierre, “Essai critique sur l'histoire des stigmatisations au moyen âge,” ätudes carmélitaines, 21.2 (1936), 22–59 Google Scholar; Amann, E., “Stigmatisation,” Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, xiv. 1 (Paris, 1939), cols. 2617-19Google Scholar. According to the statistics compiled by Weinstein and Bell, women account for 27% of the wonder-working relics in the Middle Ages, although they are only 17.5% of the saints; see Weinstein, Donald and Bell, Rudolph M., Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700 (Chicago, 1982), pp. 123-37Google Scholar.

60 For example, this was true of the Flemish saint, Lidwina of Schiedam (d. 1433). See Bynum, “Fast, Feast, and Flesh,” pp. 6 - 7 and nn. 24 and 27.

61 Two saints who stress substituting their suffering for that of others are Alice of Schaerbeke and Catherine of Genoa. See Life of Alice of Schaerbeke, chap, iii, par. 26, AASS, June II, 476; and Genoa, Catherine of, Il Dialogo spirituale, in Umile Bonzi da Genova, ed., S. Caterina Fieschi Adorno, II: Edizione critica dei manoscritti cateriniani (Turin, 1962), 420-21Google Scholar, 424. See also Catherine, Trattato del Purgatorio, ed. Umile Bonzi, II, 343-45. This was also true of Lidwina of Schiedam; see Bynum, “Fast, Feast, and Flesh,” p. 6 andn. 25.

62 See Mundy, “Gerard David.” On the cult of the Virgin's milk in the later Middle Ages, see Bétérous, P. V., “À propos d'une des légendes mariales les plus répandues: le ‘lait de la Vierge,’“ Bullétin de l ‘association Guillaume Budé, 4 (1975), 403-11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Durán, Rafael M. Iconografía española de San Bernardo (Monasterio de Poblet, 1953)Google Scholar; Dewez, Léon and Iterson, Albert van, “La lactation de saint Bernard: Légende et iconographie,” Citeaux in de Nederlanden, 7 (1956), 165-89Google Scholar. For two other examples, see Hiller and Vey, Katalog … Wallraf-Richartz Museum, plates 126 and 159. In the latter (late fifteenth-century) painting, the baby actually pushes the breast toward Bernard. For texts which refer to other lactations of adults, see Poncelet, Albert, “Index miraculorum B. V. Mariae quaesaec. VI-XV latine conscripta sunt ,” Analecta Boilandiana, 21 (1902), 359 Google Scholar.

64 See, for example, the miniature from the Milan-Turin Book of Hours in which a stream of milk from Mary's breast goes toward the donor (with whom the viewer presumably identifies) while the baby turns away from the breast; Lane, Altar and Altarpiece, p. 6, plate 4.

65 Lane, Altar and Altarpiece, pp. 13-23 and plate 6; Purtle, Marian Paintings, pp. 98-126.

66 Lane, Altar and Altarpiece, pp. 1-10 and plate 1; Purtle, Marian Paintings, p. 100, n. 8; see also O'Meara, Carra Ferguson, “‘In the Hearth of the Virginal Womb': The Iconography of the Holocaust in Late Medieval Art,” The Art Bulletin, 63.1 (1981), 75–88 Google Scholar. The cupboard and chalice are modern additions to the painting.

67 Lane, Altar and Altarpiece, pp. 71-72 and plate 47; Purtle, Marian Paintings, p. 12, n. 32, and p. 153. See also Semmelroth, Otto, Mary, Archetype of the Church, trans. M. von Eroes and J. Devlin (New York, 1963), pp. 130-31Google Scholar.

68 Schiller, Getrud, Iconography of Christian Art, trans. J. Seligman, II: The Passion of Jesus Christ (London, 1972), pp. 228-29Google Scholar; idem, Ikonographie, IV. 1: Die Kirche, p. 62. On the related motif of Christ in the winepress, see Marrow, Passion Iconography, p. 85, and Braun, Der Altar, II, plate 336.

69 For depictions of Christ bleeding into the chalice, see Schiller, Iconography, II: Passion, plates 707, 708, 710, 806, and Lane, Altar and Altarpiece, pp. 130-31. On Quirizio's The Savior, see Coletti, Luigi, Pittura veneta del Quattrocento (Novara, 1953), pp. xlvii–xlix Google Scholar and 100-101; Marconi, Sandra Moschini, ed., Gallerie dell'Accademia, Opere d'Arte dei Secoli XIV et XV (Rome, 1955), p. 148 Google Scholar; and Gougaud, Louis, Devotional and Ascetic Practices in the Middle Ages, trans. G. C. Bateman (London, 1927), pp. 104-10Google Scholar.

70 Ceuleneer, Adolphe de, “La Charité romaine dans la littérature et dans l'art,” Annates de l'Académie Royale d'archéologie de Belgique, 67 (Antwerp, 1919), 175–206 Google Scholar.

71 For examples of the double intercession, see Friedländer, Max J., Early Netherlandish Painting, IX. 2, trans. H. Norden with notes by H. Pauwels and M. Gierts (Leyden, 1973)Google Scholar, plate 156; Schiller, Iconography, II: Passion, plates 798, 799, 800, 802; Lane, Altar and Altarpiece, pp. 7-8; idem, “The ‘Symbolic Crucifixion’ in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves,” Oud-Holland 86 (1973), 4-26; Trexler, Richard C., Public Life in Renaissance Florence, Studies in Social Discontinuity (New York, 1980), p. 26 Google Scholar, plate 8; and Moir, A. L. and Letts, Malcolm, The World Map in Hereford Cathedral and The Pictures in the Hereford Mappa Mundi, 7th ed. (Hereford, 1975), pp. 11 and 19Google Scholar. For the texts on the Holbein, sec Schiller, Iconography, II: Passion, p. 225.

72 Monballieu, A., “Het Antonius Tsgrooten-triptiekje (1597) uit Tongerloo van Goosen van der Weyden,” Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Scheme Kunsten Antwerpen (1967), pp. 13–36 Google Scholar.

73 An influential article that projects back into the earlier western tradition the modern nature/culture contrast is Ortner, Sherry, “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” in Michelle Z. Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds., Women, Culture and Society (Stanford, 1974), pp. 67–86 Google Scholar. For criticisms of Ortner's approach, on these and other grounds, see Leacock, Eleanor and Nash, June, “Ideologies of Sex: Archetypes and Stereotypes,” Issues in Cross-Cultural Research, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 285 (New York, 1977), pp. 618-45Google Scholar, and MacCormack, Carol P. and Strathern, M., eds., Nature, Culture and Gender (Cambridge, 1980)Google Scholar. For criticism of projecting modern physiological theory onto earlier concepts, see Laqueur, Female Orgasm and Body Politic. The point about the mixing of genders has been nicely made by McLaughlin, Eleanor, “ ‘Christ My Mother': Feminine Naming and Metaphor in Medieval Spirituality,” Nashota Review, 15 (1975), 229-48Google Scholar.

74 For examples of hagiographers who praise women as “virile,” see Life of Ida of Louvain, AASS, April, II, 159; and Life of Ida of Leau, AASS, October, XIII, 112. The compliment could, of course, cut both ways.

75 See Bynum, Jesus as Mother, pp. 127-28, and idem, “Women's Stories, Women's Symbols: A Critique of Victor Turner's Theory of Liminality,” in Anthropology and the Study of Religion, ed. F. Reynolds and R. Moore (Chicago, 1984), pp. 105-24.

76 Bynum, Jesus as Mother, pp. 110-69; Vauchez, La sainteté, p. 446 n. 511; Gerson, John, Collectorium super Magnificat, treatise 9, in Oeuvres complètes, ed. P. Glorieux, VIII: L'oeuvre spirituelle et pastorale (Paris, 1971), pp. 397-98Google Scholar.

77 Bynum, “ ‘… And Woman His Humanity.’ “ I have considered some of the implications of this observation in “The Complexity of Symbols,” in Bynum, Harrell and Richman, Gender and Religion.

78 Laqueur, Female Orgasm and Body Politic. On the commensurability of bodily fluids, see also Goodich, Michael, “Bartholomaeus Angelicus on Child-rearing,” History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory, 3 (1975), pp. 75–84 Google Scholar, esp. 80; McLaughlin, Mary M., “Survivors and Surrogates: Children and Parents from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Centuries,” in The History of Childhood, ed. L. DeMause (New York, 1974), pp. 101–181 Google Scholar, esp. 115-18; and Wood, “Doctors'Dilemma,” p. 719.

79 Such a conception encouraged the exuding miracles (e.g., oil-exuding, miraculous lactation, cures with saliva, ecstatic nosebleeds) that characterized female saints. On such miracles, see Bynum, “Fast, Feast, and Flesh,” nn. 14, 15, 81, 82, 83 and 85.

80 One thinks of the iconographic tradition associating Mary Magdalen and Francis of Assisi with the toes of Christ: see Joanna Ziegler. “The Virgin or Mary Magdalen? Artistic Choices and Changing Spiritual Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages,” paper presented at the Holy Cross Symposium “The Word Becomes Flesh,” November 9, 1985, and Roberta J. Schneider, “The Development of Iconographic Manifestations of St. Francis of Assisi as the Alter Christus in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italian Painting,” M. A. Thesis, University of Washington, 1985, plates 8-20. For examples of the Magdalen kissing or hovering over Christ's feet at the crucifixion or deposition, see Hiller and Vey, Katalog … Wallraf-Richartz Museum, plates 86 and 124. For examples of Francis curled around the feet of Christ, see Moleta, Vincent, From St. Francis to Giotto: The Influence of St. Francis on Early Italian Art and Literature (Chicago, 1983), p. 26 Google Scholar, and Berenson, Bernard, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works: Central Italian and Northern Italian Schools, II (London, 1968)Google Scholar, plate 448. Margery Kempe was especially devoted to the toes of Christ: see The Book Margery Kempe: The Text from the Unique Manuscript Owned by Colonel W. Butler-Bowdon, ed. Sanford B. Meech and Hope Emily Allen, Early English Text Society, 212 (London, 1940). For a reading of Steinberg (very different from mine) that nonetheless draws attention generally to Christ's bodiliness, see Jane Gallop, “Psychoanalytic Criticism: Some Intimate Questions,” in Art in America (November, 1984), p. 15.

81 See Bynum, “Women Mystics,” and Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls, pp. 89-121, esp. p. 104, for discussion of late medieval notions of using body to approach God. Such an emphasis on body as a means of becoming like Christ is very different from a dualistic rejection of body as the enemy of spirit. To say this is not, however, to deny that medieval thinkers also stressed the disciplining of flesh, especially female flesh. See Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls, pp. 118-20, and Weinstein and Bell, Saints and Society, pp. 233-38.

82 See Bornstein, Diane, “Antifeminism,” Dictionary of the Middle Ages, I (New York, 1982), 322-25Google Scholar, andn. 46 above.

83 The fact that late medieval theology stressed crucifixion more than resurrection is well known. See Hourlier, Jacques and Rayez, André, “Humanité du Christ,” Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire (Paris, 1969)Google Scholar, VII pt. I, cols. 1053-96; Southern, Richard W., The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, 1959), pp. 231-40Google Scholar; and Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls, pp. 89-113, esp. p. 96. See also n. 81 above.