Reform and Resistance: Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture

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3FGPSNBOE3FTJTUBODF Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture

)FMFOF4DIFDL

Reform and Resistance

SUNY series in Medieval Studies Paul E. Szarmach, editor

Reform and Resistance Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture

Helene Scheck

On the cover is an image of the ruins of Notre Dame de Soissons. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2008 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Ryan Morris Marketing by Michael Campochiaro This book was printed on acid-free, 50% recycled paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scheck, Helene. Reform and resistance : formations of female subjectivity in early medieval ecclesiastical culture / Helene Scheck. p. cm. — (SUNY series in medieval studies ; 241) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7914-7483-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. English literature—Old English, ca. 450–1100—History and criticism. 2. Christian literature, English (Middle)—History and criticism. 3. Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern)—History and criticism. 4. Hrotsvitha, ca. 935–ca. 975— Criticism and interpretation. 5. Women in Christianity—Germany—History—Middle Ages, 600–1500. 6. Christianity and literature—Germany—History—To 1500. 7. Alcuin, 735–804—Criticism and interpreation. 8. Germany—Church history— To 843. 9. Germany—Church history—843–1517. I. Title. PR166.S34 2008 274'.03082—dc22

2007036636 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of my grandfather, Armand Streets, and my uncle Joe Ortiz

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Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Women in/and Early Ecclesiastical Culture: An Overview

viii ix xii 1

The Limits of Orthodoxy: Being Female and Female Being under Charlemagne

27

Soul Searching: Alcuin of York and His Circle of Female Scholars

53

Redressing the Female Subject: Women, Transvestite Saints, and the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine Reform

73

Resounding Silences: Mary and Eve in Anglo-Saxon Reform Literature

97

Chapter 6

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Claiming Her Voice

121

Chapter 7

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Recasting Female Subjectivities

143

Conclusion

167

Notes

171

Bibliography

207

Index

229

Illustrations Figure 5.1

Garden of Eden and Satan bound in Hell

108

Figure 5.2

Temptation of Adam and lamentation of Adam and Eve

109

Figure 5.3

Dual temptation of Adam and Eve

111

Figure 5.4

Dual Judgment of Adam and Eve

112

viii

Acknowledgments I am humbled by the support of many generous spirits in the completion of this book. The insights and suggestions of mentors and colleagues helped to strengthen its argument and substance; any errors and oversights that remain are my own. As is typical of first books, this project began as my dissertation. Marilynn Desmond, my doctoral advisor, deserves especial thanks for demanding the highest level of scholarship; her analytical acuity, intellectual rigor, and tireless support were a blessing. A model of scholarly excellence, she continues to be a source of inspiration and to offer sage advice. Naturally, each of my readers helped shape my project in a unique way, and I am grateful to all: Elizabeth Robertson, Daniel Williman, and Gerald Kadish. At Binghamton University I was also fortunate to be part of a vibrant graduate student cohort, and I would like to thank those who made that time stimulating and productive: Lyn Blanchfield, Virginia Blanton, Liz Cobas, Virginia Cole, Beth Cracciolo, Rhonda Knight, Erika Lindgren, Jan Norris, Chris Owens, Mary Sokolowski, Christopher Vaccaro, and Dana-Linn Whiteside. Paul Szarmach has my deepest appreciation for cultivating my interest in things Anglo-Saxon, for introducing me to Ælfric, and for advancing my study of Alcuin. He saw this project in its nascent form, helped me to frame some of the main questions and to shape the research. Paul continues to be a source of wit and wisdom and a model of collegiality. It is appropriate, therefore, that the final product now appears in the State University of New York Press Middle Ages series during his tenure as series editor. The State University of New York Press is to be commended for its staff, its professionalism, and its efficiency; it has been a pleasure to work with James Peltz, acquisitions editor and interim director during the production of this book, and Ryan Morris, production editor. Both have been knowledgeable, creative, and responsive, making for a positive ix

x

Acknowledgments

experience all around. I would like to thank the anonymous readers, whose careful reading and useful perceptions helped to sharpen the thinking and the structure of the book. Thanks also to Margaret Black Mirabelli, whose editorial expertise and perceptive comments smoothed the rough edges at a crucial stage. I have been blessed with colleagues in the field who have not hesitated to offer insightful feedback, intellectual stimulation, and encouragement over the years: Bonnie Effros, Shari Horner, Kathy Krause, Felice Lifshitz, Roy Liuzza, Rosemarie Morewedge, Sharon Rowley, Elaine Treharne, and Patricia Wallace. Nobody deserves greater thanks and praise than Virginia Blanton, who has read and listened to parts of this project in its various incarnations and has responded with unfailing patience and tremendous insight. Her own work has been an inspiration and her friendship and support, invaluable; everyone should have such a colleague. Gratitude is also due to all of my colleagues in the department of English for creating an intellectually vibrant atmosphere. In particular, I appreciate the insights and generosity of Bret Benjamin, Teresa Ebert, Judith Fetterley, Martha Fleming, Rosemary Hennessy, Eric Keenaghan, Ineke Murakami, Steve North, Marjorie Pryse, and Kathleen Thornton. Special thanks are due to those who read and responded to my work, in some cases several times: Jeff Berman, Randall Craig, Martha Tuck Rozett, Ellen Higgins, and Jil Hanifan. I’d like also to extend my gratitude to Rachel Dressler, a colleague in art history whom I admire greatly, for her personal and professional support, many stimulating conversations, and lively spirit. Warmest thanks are due to former chair, Gareth Griffiths, for his enthusiasm, moral support, and pearls of wisdom, and current chair, Mike Hill, who has offered nothing but stalwart support of my work. My students have provided a steady supply of questions and thoughtful responses. I am especially grateful to Kelly Ann Fitzpatrick, Daniel Gremmler, and Karen Williams; Janet Dymond deserves special mention for reading and responding to my book manuscript at an early stage. I have also enjoyed material support from my institution. The English department provided writing leave; a grant from the Nuala McGann Drescher fund extended that leave to a full year; the Department and the University granted a subvention to cover the cost of permissions. I am also indebted to the interlibrary loan office, particularly Winifred H. Kutchukian. Those closest to me deserve the greatest thanks and praise. Through it all, my family has offered unflinching support. Thanks to my siblings, Suzanne Gaskins, Kristine Westland, and Michael Sieber, for their con-

Acknowledgments

xi

stant understanding, and for reminding me of what’s real. I thank my parents, Hans and Helga Scheck, for nurturing my intellectual curiosity, for fostering a heightened critical sensibility, and for their unfailing and unquestioning support. I would also like to acknowledge all the strong women in my family: Oma Streets, Oma Scheck, Martha, Tante Maria, and my aunts Waltraut, Rosemary, Gretel, and Ingrid, my sisters, my sisterin-law, Ruth, and my mother most of all. Their examples inspired me to think more deeply about the unsung women of the past, especially those whose stories could not be recovered. These are truly women who are “good to think with.” Finally, I want to thank my partner, Kevin Mahar, who has always encouraged my intellectual pursuits and patiently withstood all of the trials and tribulations along the way with loving confidence, challenging me to think more deeply and offering much-needed perspective and a sense of humor when I need it most.

List of Abbreviations CHI

Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, volume I

CHII

Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, volume II

Clavis

Clavis Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi. Auctores Galliae, 735–987. Vol. 2, Alcuinus. Ed. M.-H. Jullien and F. Perelman (Turnhout 1999)

Diss.

Dissertation

EETS

Early English Text Society

EH

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford 1969)

LS

Ælfric’s Lives of the Saints

MGH

Monumenta Germaniae Historica

n.f.

Neue folge

n.s.

New series

o.s.

Original series

PL

Patrologia Cursus Completus. Series Latina. Ed. J. P. Migne

PG

Patrologia Cursus Completus. Series Graeca. Ed. J. P. Migne

s.s.

Supplementary series

xii

Chapter 1

Women in/and Early Ecclesiastical Culture An Overview

This book seeks not to define or locate a true female subject for the early Middle Ages, were that even possible, but to examine subject possibilities as they evolved through the dynamics of ecclesiastical reform and then resistance to reform measures within an extremely complex intermingling of two distinct cultures—Germanic and Mediterranean. More specifically, this study focuses intently on the mirroring and rupturing that occur in the formation of female Christian subjects during three of the least stable and most productive moments of reform and resistance in the Germanic early Middle Ages: the early Carolingian reform movement under Charlemagne (ca. 742–814), with particular attention to Alcuin (ca. 735–804); the Alfredian and Benedictine reform movements in AngloSaxon England (in the late ninth through eleventh centuries); and, finally, the impressive career of Hrotsvit von Gandersheim, in the midst of the Ottonian renaissance and monastic reforms of tenth-century Saxony. These diverse Germanic cultures during three distinct moments of ecclesiastical development exhibit radically different possibilities for the materialization and dematerialization of culturally intelligible female subjects. To understand what happened in Germania, we need first to consider how women’s roles changed in early ecclesiastical culture in the Mediterranean regions and how these roles were introduced into Germanic regions. We need to understand the conflicting perceptions of women’s status in the early Church as contextualized in the late antique Mediterranean regions and also to consider the gendering of the imago Dei implicit in early Judeo-Christian perceptions of the relationship between body and soul. We also require some grasp of the position of women 1

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in early Germania in order to comprehend better the complex cultural negotiations necessitated by the spread of Christianity to the northern European regions. Specifically, we need to look briefly at some of the larger moments of conversion and reform in Germanic regions up to 1000 CE. Emerging from the Mediterranean regions, the early Church followed patriarchal Greco-Roman and Judaic ideologies, which, with few exceptions, defined men alone as fully autonomous beings; women were necessary as helpers and to bear children, especially male children, but they were not considered subjects in their own right.1 Church leaders came together as a political body to discuss, confirm, or reject certain views or beliefs. Women had no representation in that inner circle, even if they were primary players in the spread of Christianity. Apparent contradictions regarding women’s status in the earliest writings of the Church point to internal contradictions in Christian doctrine. The dominant Christian ideology of the early Church seems not to have acknowledged women as subjects in their own right. In the mainline Christian reading of the Genesis story, for example, Eve’s intellectual incapacity and inherent seductiveness demonstrate that women cannot be trusted to make the right choices and therefore must be supervised by their male guardians. Paul’s statement in his first letter to the Corinthians corroborates this view of female deficiency when he explains that women must cover their heads, but men must not, because men are made in the image of God but “woman is the glory of man” (I Corinthians 11: 7). At the same time, the author of 1 Timothy 2:11–12 commands: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”2 And yet two traditions emerge in the early history of the Church, both of which may certainly be considered orthodox. As Suzanne Fonay Wemple observes: One was the tradition of the organized Church, which reflected the prejudices of the patriarchal societies where Christianity was born and propagated. The other was the contemplative and prophetic tradition, which kept alive the principle of equality proclaimed in the Gospels. (Women in Frankish Society 191) Evidence for both traditions is readily available in ecclesiastical texts from the earliest Church, but the relationship is (necessarily, I think) simplified

Women in/and Early Ecclesiastical Culture

3

in Wemple’s presentation, since the two traditions she seeks to differentiate are inextricably intertwined throughout. Paul, Augustine, Origen, Jerome, and Gregory, to name only a few of the most distinguished figures of the Church, all wrote and preached within both traditions without any clear break between the two, seeming to support both patriarchal biases and gender equality. Despite his restrictive policies regarding women, for example, Paul imagined a paradise in which “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ.”3 Augustine, likewise, displayed fervent admiration for his mother (who was responsible for his conversion), had female students, encouraged and applauded female piety, and seemed to admire a keen intellect in women as well as in men. Indeed, Peter Brown has shown that Christian women in the late antique period commanded a good deal of authority: “Much though they may have wished, at times, to snub their own protectresses in the same abrupt manner, the Christian clergy of late antiquity found that, in their community, influential women were there to stay” (Body and Society 146). Widows especially were highly regarded within ecclesiastical circles: “They were the only lay persons who accumulated all the attributes of effective members of the clergy, barring the crucial prerogative of ordained service at the altar” (148). Widows donated large sums of time, energy, and money to the Christian cause, which perhaps won them some freedom from rigid cultural constraints. Whatever the reason, women of means became a vital source of support for the growing grassroots movement, and they even conducted what may have been the earliest eucharistic ritual, hosting symbolic sacred dinners at their homes in imitation of the last supper.4 From the second to the fifth centuries, women seem to have become credible members of Christian communities clustering around the Mediterranean, so that, Brown observes, “[a]ltogether, the Christian intelligentsia of the age took the presence of women, as disciples and patronesses, absolutely for granted” (Body and Society 152). But lived experience, whether of few or many, can be easily obscured or even erased by an ideological program into which such experiences do not comfortably fit. While a unifying program for the early Church is not readily ascertainable amid the array of ideologies vying for dominance, the question of female subject formation in any ideology of the early Church ultimately comes down to definitions of the soul and the gendering of the imago Dei. Here it is useful to turn to Augustine, since he not only exerted a tremendous influence over later generations of ecclesiastics, but

4


he also, more than any other doctor of the Church, explored in depth possibilities for selfhood in the Christian framework, taking up ideas of gender as well as class and ethnicity in defining what it is to be human. Even for Augustine, however, there was clearly no easy way to define the female as subject in the early Church. In explaining the disjunction between Paul’s mandate that the woman is the glory of man while the man is the image and glory of God (1 Cor 11:7) and his famous assertion on equality before God (Galatians 3:26–28), Augustine states: After all, the authority of the apostle as well as plain reason assures us that man was not made to the image of god as regards the shape of his body, but as regards his rational mind. . . . But because they are being renewed to the image of God where there is no sex, it is there where there is no sex that man [homo] was made to the image of God, that is in the spirit of his mind. . . . Well, it is only because she differs from the man in the sex of her body that her bodily covering could suitably be used to symbolize that part of the reason which is diverted to the management of temporal things, signifying that the mind of man does not remain the image of God except in the part which adheres to the eternal ideas to contemplate or consult them: and it is clear that females have this as well as males. So in their minds a common nature is to be acknowledged; but in their bodies the distribution of the one mind is symbolized.5 This passage renders the allegory of gender transparent, simple, and therefore harmless, since gender distinction merely symbolizes the duality of the human psyche—rational thought over sensual/material impulses. However, the allegorization of gender works because it grows out of the firmly implanted social assumption that, except in rare cases, men are superior in body and mind. In the same chapter of De Trinitate, explicating Paul’s dictum that women, but not men, should cover their heads, Augustine naturalizes that allegory by explaining it in terms of the gender hierarchy enacted through the social institution of marriage: . . . the woman with her husband is the image of God in such a way that the whole of that substance is one image, but when she is assigned her function of being an assistant, which is her concern alone, she is not the image of God; whereas in what concerns


5

the man alone he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman is joined to him in one whole. We said about the nature of the human mind that if it is all contemplating truth it is the image of God; and when something is drawn off from it and assigned or directed in a certain way to the management of temporal affairs, it is still all the same the image of God as regards the part with which it consults the truth it has gazed on; but as regards the part which is directed to managing these lower affairs, it is not the image of God.6 Augustine reads Paul’s statements on gender symbolically in order to articulate the mystery of the human self. Both traditions relating to women—liberal and conservative—are apparent in Augustine’s reading. The symbolic allows an egalitarian interpretation whereby it is the human mind, not the body, that is created in the image of God. And yet for Augustine as well as for Paul, the symbolic is heavily grounded in the social and cannot therefore be extricated from it. In Augustine’s interpretation, the man represents high reason, which contemplates the eternal wonders of God, and the woman represents lower reason, which tends to temporal things. Both men and women, Augustine remarks, have higher and lower rational capacities, a view that seems almost liberal in its provision of a loophole for women who would devote their lives to divine contemplation. But domesticity and sensuality belong to the “lower” realm, and both define women in Greco-Roman and in Judaic societies. Therefore, although women may still aspire to the image of God, they may do so only when they completely detach themselves from society and use that part of the mind that relates to things eternal. Men, however, may achieve the same simply by living their lives “naturally” and socially as men. Whether or not women can ever fully extricate themselves from their social duties is another question entirely. Augustine’s explication of Genesis, for example, states that women are important primarily as childbearers: Or if woman was not made for the help of bearing sons (filios) for man, for what help then was she made? Not yet was there labor, so that he should require help, and, if there had been need, a male would become a better help. For how much more harmonious for living and conversing together that two equal friends should live together than man and woman.7

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To Augustine it would seem that women’s subservience is part of the natural order established in Genesis. Book twelve of De Civitate Dei argues that man is preeminent among all other creatures of the earth because he was created in the image of God. Here Augustine privileges Adam only, the male of the species, who “was created as one individual, but was not left alone.”8 Elsewhere Augustine explains the creation of woman as supplement: God created man as one individual; but that did not mean that he was to remain alone, bereft of human society. God’s intention was that in this way the unity of human society and the bonds of human sympathy be more emphatically brought home to man, if men were bound together not merely by likeness in nature but also by the feeling of kinship. And to this end, when he created the woman who was to be joined with the man he decided not to create her in the same way as he created man himself. Instead he made her out of the man, so that the whole human race should spread out from one original man.9 Society and kinship emerge as vital aspects of God’s plan, where women accommodate men by bearing sons and populating the earth so that men can bond socially with other men and rejoice in copies of themselves (and, of course, of God). Most importantly, tracing the human race back to one original man rather than back to both Adam and Eve as a couple precludes the possibility of an equal partnership between them and neutralizes the life-giving potential of the female body. In De Civitate Dei, a work of his later years informed by a seasoned intellect and his many years as a Church leader, Augustine clearly takes masculine superiority for granted when he explains that men’s beards are for ornamentation: There are some details in the body which are there simply for aesthetic reasons, and for no practical purpose—for example, the nipples on a man’s chest, and the beard on his face, the latter being clearly for a masculine ornament, not for protection.This is shown by the fact that women’s faces are hairless, and since women are the weaker sex, it would surely be more appropriate for them to be given such protection.10


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Perhaps he is simply thinking in terms of physical strength here, but body and soul are, for Augustine, inextricably linked. Augustine’s statements cited thus far seem to suggest that women are trapped by their own bodies, which are construed as weak, seductive, and distastefully imbued with the concerns of the world. But other statements favor a more nuanced reading in which women are trapped not just by the society that has naturalized their physical and sexual inferiority, but by the souls that shaped those weak, dangerous bodies in the first place. In chapter 24 of De Immortalitate Animae, for example, Augustine argues that the body takes its form from the soul and that form gives the body its beauty: It is not what pertains to the mass of a body, but that which pertains to its form, species, which gives a body its being. This view is established by reasoning which cannot be faulted. The more fully a body is, the more formed and beautiful it is, and the more ugly and deformed it is, the less fully it is. This loss comes about not by a reduction of the mass, which we have already discussed, but rather by deprivation of the form.11 If the masculine body surpasses the feminine body in form, then, by implication, the masculine soul must surpass the feminine soul as well. Always. As much as Augustine tries to elevate women interested in propagating the faith, he always falls back on the underlying assumption of female inferiority: physical, spiritual, natural, and social, and his ideas were instrumental in promoting that view for subsequent centuries. For E. Ann Matter, Augustine’s ambivalent position—that women both are and are not in the image of God—became a useful tool that allowed ecclesiastical authorities to maintain male sacramental authority and restrict female power within the Church (“The Undebated Debate”). Even if that ambiguity prompted creative solutions for certain gifted and privileged women who found communities in which they could live in the image of God, the fact that the question never came to theological debate meant that women never would officially be seen to participate in the imago Dei and, thus, would never be recognized as autonomous subjects in the dominant view of the Church (ibid., esp. 42, 45). Ideally, perhaps, Christianity offered certain women the promise of active subject positions. But the Church clearly had reservations about any autonomy it offered. The Aristotelian notion that man represents

8


reason and woman sense becomes a defining article of gender-formation in Christian ideology throughout the early Church and into the early medieval period. The reason/sense paradigm would hinder the formation of the female subject, in that her body served as a constant reminder of human vulnerability, original sin, and the dangers of female seduction. Ambrose’s cosmological order, for example, requires absolute separation of what Brown calls “potent antitheses—Christian and pagan, Catholic and heretic, Bible truth and ‘worldly’ guesswork, Church and saeculum, soul and body” (Body and Society 346). Such a dualistic world vision assumes the inherently dangerous quality of the feminine, where the Christian self is unmistakably male and put upon by the various feminine forces set loose in the world, as Brown convincingly argues. That Ambrose had close relations with his sister, Marcellina, and with other women who devoted themselves to Christ, does not appear to moderate either his view of the generic Christian subject as male or his implicit distrust of the female. Like the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom Ambrose venerated highly, these female devotees had apparently so steeled their bodies that they became impenetrable, invulnerable, inviolate, and male-like. In order for a woman to shape herself within the parameters of the Christian discourse of the late antique period, therefore, she often had to redefine herself as a man. Margaret Miles focuses specifically on this phenomenon in Carnal Knowing, where she argues that the early Christian self is by definition masculine. Examining patristic accounts of successful Christian women, Miles shows how women, in order to define themselves as subjects within the Christian discourse of the early Church, typically must “become male.”12 In these cultural circumstances, Miles concludes, “For women . . . courage, conscious choice, and self-possession constituted gender transgression” (Carnal Knowing 55). It is worth noting here that Miles uses texts dating primarily to the late antique period when the body was increasingly considered a source of pollution and anxiety. In the dominant ideology of the ascendant Church, therefore, possibilities for female subject formation are limited: a woman must construct herself as male in order to participate, and so must doubly deny her personal self in the interests of corporate identity; she must be content to subject herself to God through her subjection to a man, but never emerge as a subject in her own right; or she must resign herself to a life of abjection, a condition culturally unintelligible within the dominant ideological framework. But the early Middle Ages is characterized by tremendous flux, and the Church, as in the late antique period, is hardly sure in its aims


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and agenda. Close scrutiny of the period reveals the fluidity of Christian ideologies and what we call orthodoxy. If orthodoxy became staunchly antifeminist, as it so often seems, it is because a patriarchal ideology eventually came to dominate the contesting hegemonies of early Christianity in the West. Even such austere, self-assured Fathers of the Church as Paul, Jerome, and Augustine would alternately affirm and subvert pervasive masculinist biases. The fact that ecclesiastical councils could reject and label certain ideas heretical—as with the Pelagian and Arian controversies13—would seem to suggest a firm sense of orthodoxy, and the fact that the deciding body was predominantly male-biased makes orthodoxy appear antifeminist. But the early Church, unwieldy with expansion, could not yet make such clear distinctions because so much was still being discussed and debated and even left unresolved. Even when certain matters were decided, they may not have been decided unanimously or have been realistically enforceable in all cultural milieux. No longer a Mediterranean cult, Christianity had to adapt to increasingly remote and diverse cultures, resulting in greater confusion, conflict, and compromise. Orthodoxy in early medieval Frankish, Gaulish, Anglo-Saxon, or Saxon terms was a hope, but never a reality. The continued spread of Christianity and the intermingling of Mediterranean, Celtic, and Germanic cultures that characterizes the early medieval period complicate notions of selfhood, particularly in relation to gender. The position of women in Germanic culture differed from that of their Roman and Mediterranean counterparts. Germanic societies seemed to have held women in high regard in spiritual and perhaps even intellectual matters. Tacitus provides evidence concerning Germanic women in the first century,14 exclaiming surprise at the high social status of women, who enter into marriage as equal partners: Lest the woman think herself outside notions of virtue and beyond the dangers of war, from the very opening ceremonies of matrimony she herself is admonished to come as a partner in labors and perils, ready to suffer and to dare the same in peace, the same in war: this is what the yoked oxen, the caparisoned horse, the gift of weapons, signify.15 According to Tacitus, Germanic women were to fulfill not only the duties of wives, mothers, nurses, and providers, but also counselors: “They also believe that there is something holy and provident in women, and so they

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do not spurn their counsels or ignore their responses.”16 The reputation of the Germanic prophetesses, Tacitus reminds his readers, extends to Rome as well: “We [Romans] have seen under the divine Vespasian that Veleda for a long time and according to many was considered a goddess; but also in times past they worshipped Aurinia and many others, not in adulation or as if they would make them goddesses.”17 For J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Tacitus found in Germany of the first century a virtual golden age for women: [Tacitus] says (what Caesar confirms) that the Germans believed their women to possess a spiritual power denied to men; they had a divine spark of foreknowledge and thus their advice was not to be overlooked, even on military questions. Aside from her natural gifts and abilities, the Germanic woman was a prophetess. So, too, were Celtic women; and the two came together in western Europe to fuse into a formidable female instrument for plumbing the unseen. Moreover, she was a healer. For good or ill she was associated with magic. (The Frankish Church 404) These observations suggest a fair degree of authority and social autonomy. More recent scholars are skeptical. Wemple argues that “This special regard . . . must have been limited to a few prophetesses, for women were excluded from the assemblies” (Women in Frankish Society 11). Tacitus’s observations must also be scrutinized in terms of his own motivations and political agenda. As Janet Nelson remarks: Tacitus, writing not ethnology but ethics for Romans, was making the point that female hostages ought to be accepted from Germans, contrary to Roman practice, and his invocation of religious to impute political standing was a characteristic piece of elision: effective, of course, precisely because the Romans themselves were familiar with the idea that women could function as mouthpieces of “a holy something.” Yet of Germans’ attitudes to their women, Tacitus took care to add: “they never treated them with adulation, as goddesses.” (“Women and the Word” 60) Clearly, Romans had some reference point for understanding the importance of female spirituality to the Germanic tribes, but apparently they


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were unable to gauge the extent of female piety in Germanic terms. On the whole, though, scholars agree that women held some spiritual authority in Germanic areas at least into the eleventh century, though opinions vary as to degree. It is possible that women had gradually lost their esteemed position between Tacitus’s time and the earliest recorded laws of Germanic tribes. Nevertheless, in light of such cultural differences regarding women, it would seem that what was ecclesiastically forbidden by the Roman Church may have been culturally viable, or even required, in the outskirts of converted territory, which by the eighth century extended north and east to Frisia and Saxony, Germanic tribal regions that still regarded women as purveyors of piety.18 Active participation of female religious in these regions may have been expected, perhaps even required. Women also had some legal and property rights. In Anglo-Saxon England, for example, a marriage union could not be finalized without the woman’s consent. And instead of a dowry, the Anglo-Saxon morgengifu, “morning gift,” sealed the pact. The morgengifu was paid on the first morning of their marriage by a husband to his wife, not to her family. According to Christine Fell, that gift could be substantial and could be made in the form of land (Women in Anglo-Saxon England 56–57). Moreover, Fell explains: “The morgengifu was not the only property the wife had a right to, but different laws divide the matrimonial estate in different ways. They do, however, make it clear that within a marriage the finances are held to be the property of husband and wife, not of husband only” (ibid. 57). Not only did a woman have a say upon entering into marriage and have some control over properties independently and in conjunction with her husband, but she also, presumably in extreme circumstances, could choose to leave the marriage: According to the laws of Æðelbert a woman had the right to walk out of a marriage that did not please her, though I do not find this particular freedom reiterated in the later laws. Since, if she took the children with her, she was also entitled to take half the property, she seems to have had reasonable independence and security. (ibid. 57) If Germanic women were so highly regarded and if they were responsible for guarding and passing on religious obligation and observation, it is puzzling that they should so quickly have been swayed to new beliefs. From a modern perspective, they seem to have been ineffective

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guardians who willfully participated in their own subjugation by accepting the Christian patriarchal ideology. The key may lie in perceptions of the female body. In early Germanic culture, the body functions as the source of both female autonomy and female subjugation. Because they were so vital to the survival and proper functioning of their tribe, Germanic women were more closely guarded and more harshly punished for their transgressions. Women had to keep their bodies—from which their special attributes came—pure.19 The primary evidence yields diverse interpretations, however. According to Wallace-Hadrill: Married, the Frankish woman held the honour of two kindreds in her keeping: her husband’s and her father’s. In this respect the wife’s responsibility was the greater and the risks she ran if she dishonoured either kindred correspondingly greater. Thus burdened, she was no mere chattel. She could hold and administer land, defend herself in the courts, act as compurgator, make donations and free her slaves if she wished. The higher her social rank the likelier it was that she would carry many other responsibilities than care for her household. In short, a queen was an honorary man. (The Frankish Church 404–405) Wallace-Hadrill’s reading of Tacitus may be overly optimistic. Wemple offers a more sobering reading: Tacitus enumerated humiliating penalties for adultery, which applied only to wives. The female corpse found by archaeologists in the peat bog at Windeby in Domland, buried naked with a blindfold over her eyes, a hide collar on her neck, and her hair shaven, lends credence to Tacitus’ description of how a cuckold husband punished his wife.20 Jo Ann McNamara and Jane Tibbets Schulenburg agree that by the early Middle Ages Germanic society offered little for women but abuse and subjugation.21 Women may have had certain legal rights to property and protection, but for the most part they lived with the ongoing fear of rape and abuse and therefore were already subjugated to an unforgiving patriarchal order. Over a century ago, Lina Eckenstein puzzled over the question of early Germanic women in relation to the Church. To make


13

sense of it, she argues for a more complex view of women in Germanic society than is generally acknowledged. Whereas Tacitus provides useful clues about a particular moment in Germanic prehistory, Eckenstein argues that they should not be taken to represent ages of Germanic culture, since Germanic society evolved like any other. She postulates an earlier period, the “mother-age,” in which women were not only respected, but revered. As Roman acculturation increased and “heathendom” declined, so too did women’s position in society: During the period of declining heathendom the drift of society had been towards curtailing woman’s liberty of movement and interfering with her freedom of action.When the Germans crossed the threshold of history the characteristics of the father-age were already in the ascendant; the social era, when the growing desire for certainty of fatherhood caused individual women and their offspring to be brought into the possession of individual men, had already begun.The influence of women was more and more restricted owing to their domestic subjection. But traditions of a time when it had been otherwise still lingered. . . . At the time when contact with Christianity brought with it the possibility of monastic settlements, the love of domestic life had not penetrated so deeply, nor were its conditions so uniformly favourable, but that many women were ready to break away from it. (Women under Monasticism 3) Here Eckenstein offers a glimpse, albeit from afar, of resistant, willful, and active female subjects, and a scenario where the Church was an enabler rather than an oppressor of female autonomy. In doing so, she makes a daring comparison between prostitutes and female religious: On the face of it, a greater contrast than that between the loose woman and the nun is hard to conceive, and yet they have this in common, that they are both the outcome of the refusal among womankind to accept married relations on the basis of the subjection imposed by the father-age. (ibid. 5) The connection helps explain why women, who were seen as guardians of faith, so readily converted to another faith. The Christian Church, with its

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emphasis on chastity and cloistered spiritual development, offered willful women an escape from domestic abuse and bondage. In this scenario, these women were not passive recipients of newly assigned roles, but active subjects redefining themselves in an increasingly hostile society. Conversionary and cultural confusions offered women various opportunities for power and productivity in the public sphere. Nevertheless, the freedom enjoyed by early female monastics in Anglo-Saxon England, Francia, and Saxony was lamentably short-lived as Roman ideologies gained precedence. Women had served as preachers, however unofficially, missionaries, and to a large extent as public servants, much like their male counterparts.22 Under Boniface (ca. 675–754), Anglo-Saxon missionaries in the outer limits of converted territories may have enjoyed the greatest amount of freedom and autonomy, since they were desperately needed and of necessity worked with little immediate supervision. They were not just passive, virginal devotees, but teachers of the faith. The Vita of one particularly strong missionary woman of this period, Leoba, offers insight into the attitudes of the period, though this source, too, must be treated with caution, since it was written by a monk of Fulda in the midst of ecclesiastical reform about fifty years after her death. Leoba’s learning, the monk Rudolf relates, was legendary even in her own time, but equally noteworthy was her engagement with the secular community. A parish church erected in her honor in 837, about fifty years after her death and for which Rudolf ’s Vita was probably commissioned, still stands just east of Fulda, witness to her active involvement with the public and her importance to the monastic community at Fulda and its abbot, Hrabanus Maurus, who founded the church and retired there. Although the church was dedicated to St. Peter, it is also still called Liobaskirche in her memory. Since its erection, the church has held the relics of Leoba in a wall reliquary installed by Hrabanus himself; her head and body have since been interred there in special caskets as well. In her own monastic community, Boniface placed in her both his trust and authority to rule according to her own ideals: In furtherance of his [missionary] aims [Boniface] appointed persons in authority over the monasteries and established the observance of regular discipline: he placed Sturm as abbot over the monks and Leoba as abbess over the nuns. He gave her the monastery at a place called Bischofsheim, where there was a large community of nuns. These were trained according to her prin-


15

ciples in the discipline of monastic life and made such progress in her teaching that many of them afterward became superiors of others, so that there was hardly a convent of nuns in that part that had not one of her disciples as abbess.23 Stephanie Hollis points out that it was Leoba, not Boniface, who initiated their relationship in the first place when she wrote a letter to him, accompanied by a gift, introducing herself as his kinswoman (Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church 277). Boniface and Leoba became close and, if Rudolf ’s account is to be trusted, the relationship gave her a certain amount of monastic clout: Sometimes she came to the monastery of Fulda to say her prayers, a privilege never granted to any woman either before or since, because from the day that monks began to dwell there entrance was always forbidden to women. Permission was granted only to her, for the simple reason that the holy martyr Saint Boniface had recommended her to the seniors of the monastery and because he had ordered her remains to be buried there.24 Rudolf tells us that Leoba also became a favorite at Charlemagne’s court, and that Queen Hildegard held her as something akin to a soulmate. If her Vita shows that Leoba exercised a degree of authority and autonomy comparable to her male counterparts, it also shows that only Leoba (or other such divinely marked women) could. Such privileges were not available to ordinary women, however devoted. Rudolf can, I think, be trusted in his account of Leoba’s approved visitations to Fulda and also to Charlemagne’s court, because he would have had no cause to encourage such visitations. But Rudolf underscores the monks’ careful observance of the rule of separation even during her visits in order to prevent others from following suit: The following regulations, however, were observed when she came there. Her disciples and companions were left behind in a nearby cell and she entered the monastery always in daylight, with one nun older than the rest; and after she had finished her prayers and held a conversation with the brethren, she returned toward nightfall to her disciples whom she had left behind in the cell.25

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Even though Rudolf writes from his own time, probably around 837, when enclosure and segregation were becoming more strictly observed, it was Boniface who, as abbot of Fulda, made segregation the rule for that monastery. Moreover, Boniface worked toward the restriction of women ecclesiastics, initiating a reform in Frankish regions where all monastic houses were forced to conform to the Benedictine rule under the supervision of a bishop.26 The repercussions of this act proved more serious for women than for men, since women had no representation among the bishops. Leoba’s case aside, Boniface also advocated the separation of men and women religious and strict enclosure of female monastics, a policy his successor, Lul, would enforce strictly.27 Thus, during the course of the first millennium conflicting ideals served to advance and restrict, in turns, women’s stature in Church and society. The cultural confusions produced by expansion allowed greater autonomy for women, both within the Church and in the newly converted territories connected to the Church, as is evident, particularly, among early Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian women.28 There is no question that a woman’s power was unstable and her authority open to question; nonetheless, Janet Nelson and others have shown that women were able to move much more easily between social spheres than their male counterparts—from slave girl or prostitute to queen or empress, for example. In the religious milieu, the practical needs of the expanding Church made it possible for women—as abbesses, missionaries, and even, in certain instances, preachers—to wield substantial power with relatively little supervision, in contrast to later periods. In this assertion I am not supporting the notion of an early medieval golden age for women, not even in the earliest moments of English Christianization; instead, following the differing models of Clare Lees, Gillian Overing, Shari Horner, and Stephanie Hollis, among others, I trace the complexities of ecclesiastical culture involved in shaping possibilities for women. Female autonomy waned during various reform movements, which sought to fortify the institution of the Church against the nebulous evils of the world. The association of those dangerous forces with the female essence made women a likely target of ecclesiastical reform. The rapid spread of Christianity brought fragmentation of the Christian message, as unlearned, barely literate priests with their own vision of the faith took it upon themselves to interpret the scriptures. Councils and synods were periodically organized to address the major issues, but strenuous and concerted reform efforts were deemed necessary to stem the flow of


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error and heresy. Although the institution of the Church suffered quite obviously from spreading itself too thin, too quickly, the juxtaposition of male reason against female sensuality seems to have colored the perception of such crises. Women were crucial to the conversionary efforts, but they were still women. And even though women as such are not explicitly connected with any of the major heretical movements of the late antique period and the early Middle Ages, an example of the association of error and heresy with women can be seen in the acts of the Roman synod of 745 that condemns the priests Aldebert and Clemens and removes them from the priesthood. In the course of the proceedings, Pope Zachary declares that Aldebert is mad and that all who use his letter (which he claimed to be written by Jesus himself and dropped by the Archangel Michael) are mentally deficient “and rage with certain womanly notions.”29 That womanly sensibilities are associated with madness and heresy demonstrates a pervasive distrust of the feminine in the ideology of the Church. Individual women may excel, primarily by demonstrating their virility and thereby escaping the taint of their gender, but the female gender as a whole remains suspect. The changing demands of ecclesiastical order resulted in drastically reduced roles for women within that order. As Schulenburg explains: The Church . . . found itself in a position to attempt to enforce its gender-based restrictive policies which had been ignored or necessarily mitigated during its initial stages of development (especially during the period of the missionary movement in the north of Europe and Britain). Thus the reforms of the Carolingians (followed by those of the Cluniacs, the reforms of Gerard of Brogne, Gorze, and Richard of St. Vanne, the tenth-century English reform, and papal or Gregorian reform) introduced policies which tried to control and regularize religious activities. They worked, in general, to limit women’s public involvement and their leadership activities in the Church and society through the demarcation of a “proper” feminine sphere and a delineation of female nature, abilities, rights, and responsibilities. (Forgetful of Their Sex 108) The first serious reform efforts were instituted under the papacy of Zachary by Boniface in eighth-century Francia. Although relatively minor in scale, Boniface’s efforts set in motion a series of reforms on the continent and

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in England over the next two centuries. The first major reform began under Charlemagne and continued with unprecedented vigor under his successor, Louis the Pious. The Carolingian reforms in turn became a model for English reforms of the ninth century under Alfred the Great as well as the English and continental Benedictine reforms of the tenth and early eleventh centuries. Each of these reform movements had as their goal the strengthening of Church doctrine through establishment of uniform liturgical practices, scriptures, and language, as well as through improvement of educational resources, especially for the ordained. Each reform movement has been shown to have restricted drastically the roles and voice of women.30 In such restrictive environments, women cannot even construct themselves as male and are denied any active, public roles. Women on the fringes no doubt formed alternate modes of discourse, but such alternate forms remained culturally unintelligible and therefore inaccessible. Moreover, any products of such radical discourse certainly would not have escaped the censorship of the Church; if vestiges survive, they are virtually undecipherable because of our training and our own cultural biases, a problem feminists are beginning to address.31 Resistance to reform can be detected, however, even in the most restrictive periods among the ecclesiastical elite and among women of privilege, as we shall see. Because it is impossible to separate practice from ideology completely, it may be productive to ask to what extent ideology informs the real or experiential. We ought to acknowledge that ecclesiastical statements, conciliar mandates, and exegetical commentary were often composed in the interests of conversion and solidification and therefore provide inaccurate testimony to their own cultural circumstances. In much the same way, the state of orthodoxy the Church tried to proclaim for itself was little more than an effort toward conformity. It is difficult, therefore, to decide how much weight to give the various statements on women in the expansion/conversion periods of Christianity. Might the more egalitarian statements have been something like campaign propaganda? Or, conversely, could it be that strict policies were propaganda—drafted to placate a patriarchal elite, but never truly enforced? And how can we decide the extent to which ecclesiastical mandates were followed or enforced from one region to the next, particularly since the same statutes appear in the records synod after synod? We probably will never know, but we must keep the questions in view. As Jacqueline Murray cautions, following Caroline Walker Bynum and Joan Wallach Scott, “Our historical vantage point frequently blinds us to alternative interpretations and dissent from


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the ideology which prevailed in a society” (“Thinking about Gender” 2).32 To accept uncritically the recorded hegemonic ideology as a universal is to replicate and promote that ideology even when we seek to expose it. Alerting ourselves to alternative possibilities, we may discover that “rather than a monolithic ‘medieval view,’ a monovocalic discourse of misogyny, there was a diversity of opinion, even within what might broadly be termed ‘the Church’” (ibid. 3), and even during periods of reform. The aim of this book is not to trace historical moments, however, but to understand how women were perceived, and how they perceived themselves, within their particular social and historical circumstances—the “Real” conditions of their existence. In other words, to consider whether women are able to emerge as autonomous subjects during these moments and, if so, how. The concept of a female subject in early medieval Christianity, as in our own time, poses complicated questions and requires some theoretical underpinning. Louis Althusser’s “scientific” or structuralist approach to identity formation is helpful as a starting place, removing as it does historical and social variables and contemplating instead how individuals are formed within a larger community. For Althusser, subjects are created not in a material world, but in Ideology (or rather in not one but several ideologies or belief systems operating simultaneously), which is simply a way to imagine the relationship of the individual to the material world. In his paradigm, interpellation is the means by which ideology brings subjects into being.33 Through language, individuals are hailed or called into being and their response signals participation in and locates them within that system. Dynamics of power and oppression are realized and reinforced through language, from the speaking subject to spoken (listening) subject. According to Althusser, “You and I are always already subjects, and as such constantly practice the rituals of ideological recognition, which guarantee for us that we are indeed concrete, individual, distinguishable and (naturally) irreplaceable subjects” (“Ideology and the State” 117). This is not to say that the emergence of a dominant culture is a conscious process with clearly scripted roles, clear leaders, and certain paths to power; rather, the constitution of any dominant culture is itself a complex process of becoming with too many variables (political, historical, personal, social, philosophical, etc.) to be controllable or even traceable. All individuals are “always already” subjects because the ideology that informs them always precedes them. But subjectivity is a double-edged sword: the subject is both a “free agent” and a “subjected being.” We are

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interpellated as subjects in the name of a unique and absolute Subject (i.e., God in the Christian order), which, according to Althusser, “means that all ideology is centred, that the Absolute Subject occupies the unique place of the centre, and interpellates around it the infinity of individuals into subjects in a double mirror-connexion such that it subjects the subjects to the Subject, while giving them in the Subject . . . the guarantee that this really concerns them and Him” (ibid. 122). The construction of a Christian cosmology necessarily arranges beings and determines subject positions within that order. But within that order, the importance of choice must be underscored. Althusser describes a decidedly reciprocal relationship in which power is maintained and continued through the subjects’ free will: “the individual is interpellated as a (free) subject in order that he shall submit freely to the commandments of the subject” (ibid. 123). To be successful, subjects must (be made to) desire their own subjection to a particular world order created around an Absolute Subject. In the Christian order, this desire is effected through the full reciprocity of the subject–Subject relationship—that is, God, too, as Supreme Subject, “needs me, the great Subject needs subjects, even in the terrible inversion of his image in them (when the subjects wallow in debauchery, i.e. sin)” (ibid. 122). He does this, Althusser speculates, “as if to show empirically, visibly to the eye, tangibly to the hands . . . of the subjects, that, if they are subjects, subjected to the Subject, that is solely in order that finally, on Judgment Day, they will reenter the Lord’s bosom, like Christ, i.e. re-enter the Subject” (ibid. 122). The process of subject formation that Althusser outlines becomes more complex when contextualized in historical and social realities where multiple ideologies complement one another and also compete for subject participation. Moreover, as free agents, subjects can interpret the meaning of the initial hailing and can also resist interpellation. For Michel Foucault, the process of identity formation is an effect of power, and that power operates at the most basic premises of existence: in the relationship between body and soul. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault theorizes a soul born of historical reality—not the idealized soul of religious belief systems. For Foucault’s immediate topic of discussion, of course, it is the soul of the condemned created by modern systems of power. But the particular noncorporeal element that Foucault defines in his discussion can be extended beyond the condemned and beyond the modern circumstance to explain subject positions in relation to power: “It would be wrong to say that the soul is an illusion, or an ideological


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effect. On the contrary, it exists, it has a reality, it is produced permanently around, on, within the body by the functioning of a power that is exercised on those punished—and, in a more general way, on those one supervises, trains and corrects, over madmen, children at home and at school, the colonized, over those who are stuck at a machine and supervised for the rest of their lives” (Discipline and Punish 29). This soul Foucault describes is born “out of methods of punishment, supervision and constraint”; it is not a substance, but an element “in which are articulated the effects of a certain type of power and the reference of a certain type of knowledge, the machinery by which the power relations give rise to a possible corpus of knowledge, and knowledge extends and reinforces the effects of this power” (ibid.). In short, “the soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body” (ibid. 30). Michel Foucault’s defiant reversal of a “truism” pervasive in Western thought, that the body is the prison of the soul, may help tease out the vexed relationship between body and soul and, more specific to the purposes of this book, trace the subtle and far-reaching impact of that relationship on female subject formation in early ecclesiastical culture. Reading through that reversal—that the soul is the prison of the body—in Christian terms, one may say that the female body is not a trap, but rather the mark of a predetermined subjugation. Women are always already scripted as inferior. Neither Althusser nor Foucault considers the importance of gender to subject formation but rather both presume a universal subject from their own experience as men and working from a long masculinist tradition in Western thought.34 While their ideas are helpful in tracing subjectivities, the question of gender and subject formation requires further thought. We could say that the early medieval female subject, like the modern female subject, is never really culturally intelligible, but only aspires to be so. In the early medieval period—and for most of history—definition of the female subject has been shaped by males or used for masculinist ends. The female self serves merely as a mirror that reflects the masculine subject. From her assigned position at the margins, her abjectness defines the masculine subject at the center.35 The woman who comes into her own on her own terms remains culturally unspeakable, unrecognizable. She is the one who disrupts, upsets, breaks what Luce Irigaray calls “the circularity of [men’s] exchanges” (199), and she is categorically dismissed, unintelligible in terms of the dominant, masculinist culture.

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Judith Butler asserts there can be only limited possibilities for female subject formation in a masculinist social order that makes the female into the negative space, the abject other against which the masculine subject is defined. And yet she sees in the rigidity and compulsory insistence of that order opportunities for resistance—places where the subordinate, peripheral female other can materialize as a culturally intelligible subject. For Butler, the body is not a blank page on which constructs of identity are imposed. Rather, the body itself is integral to formations of identity; indeed, it forms the core of identity production in the very process of becoming recognizable in language—its materialization. Butler insists upon “a rethinking of the process by which a bodily norm is assumed, appropriated, taken on as not, strictly speaking, undergone by a subject, but rather that the subject, the speaking ‘I,’ is formed by virtue of having gone through such a process of assuming a sex” (Bodies that Matter 3; author’s emphasis). That process is necessarily exclusionary, since it “enables certain sexed identifications and forecloses and/or disavows other identifications” (ibid.). The evolution of the female subject can be understood, therefore, as a process of materialization and dematerialization. We cannot know the body as it was prior to its being described; it becomes culturally intelligible or perceptible only through that process of materialization. This book discerns three states of being for women in early medieval Germania: subject, supplementary or adjunct subject, and abject other. In the simplest terms, conversionary periods offer the most positive circumstances for the formation of viable, culturally intelligible female subjects in the Christian framework of the early Church, while reform periods recognize women as only supplementary subjects or abjected beings entirely. Even the most rigid ideological rituals, traditions, and models in their richness, however, necessarily contain gaps and fissures out of which individuated subjectivities can emerge. Moreover, women were never universally opposed to reform measures, either in England or on the continent. Thus, while Christian ideology grounded in patristic exegesis and Judeo-Christian distrust of the female body never seems to acknowledge fully the possibility of an autonomous female subject, active female subjects can be detected in these volatile areas, either within or against the dominant discourse that informs them. Chapter 2 takes up the question of female subject possibilities during the early Carolingian reforms. Following the expansive and relatively liberal attitude of the Merovingian period, the Church seems to have found itself in crisis—too many directions, too many rules, too many


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leaders. The sense of fragmentation apparently became alarming, and those in power took measures to unify and centralize. While reform measures addressed such cultural concerns as education, conformity of ritual, and uniformity of texts, they also targeted women. Though the Church had long relied upon women for support and owed much of its success during periods of conversion to the efforts of women, the Church as an institution seems never to have been quite comfortable with its dependence on “the weaker sex.” The deeds of dynamic individuals, such as Radegund of Poitiers, Queen Balthild, and Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim, to name but a few, did little to offset enduring prejudices against women, which are reiterated again and again in sacred texts, patristic exegesis, and contemporary chronicles. Literally and figuratively, women were considered dangerous, seductive, polluted, and weak, and their influence within the Church was therefore restricted. Even in the midst of reform, however, resistance sometimes asserted itself in the form of outright refusal to comply, as demonstrated by the necessary repetition of certain conciliar mandates restricting the activity of female monastics, for example. Another form of resistance can be seen among the ecclesiastical elite in their refusal unilaterally to accept and promote antifeminist dogma. Chapter 3 focuses on the works of one such reformer, Alcuin of York, and what they reveal about alternate perspectives of women in the period. Alcuin is by no means the only liberal thinker, but he was the most prolific and the most politic, meaning that he wrote for communities and individuals, not just for abstract ideals, and therefore was more publicly connected than most of the ecclesiastical elite. By presenting Alcuin as a liberal voice, I do not mean to suggest that his views challenge mainstream Church principles of the day or that he is especially radical. Rather, I hope to show that Alcuin, by promoting egalitarian ideals already in place from the earliest days of the Church—ideals relating to intellect, education, wisdom, and salvation—cultivates a space in which strong, autonomous female subjects may continue to evolve. Although Alcuin brought his liberal perspective from the cultural context of Anglo-Saxon England, the lived experience of women there does not appear to have reflected that degree of liberality. The fourth chapter considers cultural evidence and critical perspectives relating to female subject possibilities in Anglo-Saxon England. Some early scholars have painted a rather optimistic picture of women’s status in AngloSaxon England, blaming the fallen condition of women on the Norman

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Conquest.36 While there is a general agreement that women did in some sense have greater autonomy in the early Anglo-Saxon period, more recent scholarship reveals more continuity than discontinuity in women’s status during the pre- and post-conquest periods. Schulenburg and Hollis, among others, argue that there is already a significant reduction in female autonomy by the ninth century. Moreover, Schulenburg shows that, during the Anglo-Saxon period in general, women only have as much power as their male guardians or relatives allow them within the patriarchal domains of Church and state (an observation that could probably be extended to much of the early medieval West).37 Early letters, such as Eangyth’s letter to Boniface (Tangl 14), reveal autonomous women negotiating their allotted space, still able to express themselves within it, but trying not to “break the circle” as they do so. Later, after several waves of reform, masculinist constructions of the female subject dominate, representing women stereotypically and artificially in a few carefully delineated domestic, rather than public, roles. In such constructions, women have become a mirror, the perfect reflection of the patriarchal order, not subjects at all. By way of example, chapter 4 examines two such reform texts, the so-called transvestite saints’ lives. These late Anglo-Saxon renderings of the legends complicate the examination of gendered subject formation. While it would seem to be a genre in which women may emerge as empowered subjects, these particular versions of the legends, exploited for the reform agenda, simply reinforce masculinist constructions of female subjectivity by validating women who reject their femininity quite literally. Ælfric’s version of the Eugenia legend and the anonymous Old English Life of St. Euphrosyne reaffirm the model of the masculine Christian self. In order to participate successfully, women must renounce their femininity as actively as Eugenia and Euphrosyne do, undergoing a figurative conversion from female to male in order to experience full conversion to Christianity. Rather than encouraging women to dress as men in order to lead active, influential lives, however, both texts demonstrate that one can never truly escape one’s “natural” gender, and effectively serve to keep women in their restricted places. Chapter 5 focuses on representations of Mary and Eve in reform texts. Representations of the Virgin Mary discourage rather than encourage female agency and autonomy in this period. That the Virgin Mary figures prominently in the literature of late Anglo-Saxon England and is the center of a rising cult does not suggest any sort of empowerment


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for women: the Anglo-Saxon Mary is not the personalized mother that Hrotsvit of Gandersheim depicts nor the powerful Madonna that Mariolatry of the later Middle Ages would make her. Although the Blickling and Ælfrician homilies devote a good deal of attention to the figure of Mary, they are concerned more with her connection to King David and the assurance of the Christ child’s proper and pure birth than with anything relating to women in general. Ælfric’s homilies focus intently on Mary’s virginity. She qualifies to serve as the mother of God simply because she is a link to the otherwise male blood line of King David. Moreover, she is not just any virgin, but has been purged of all womanliness so that she is fit to bear Christ. This process, especially as Ælfric describes it, makes her into a gilt vase, a pure vessel; she is bereft of all humanity. Ælfric’s celebration of Mary venerates the female body as object and place, not person. In its unique development of the character of Eve, Genesis B offers perhaps the most complex model for the interpellation of subjectivities in the corpus of Old English poetry. The poem originated in the strictest Carolingian reform period under Louis the Pious and consequently found a welcome reception during the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine reforms.38 Genesis B performs a gender-based split in subjectivity in its account of the Fall of humanity, effecting a movement away from the personal subject to the corporate for males, and simultaneously stigmatizing the female subject, which becomes associated with personal interests and Satan. The male subject maintains corporate identity, honoring his alliance with God (until his Fall), but Satan and Eve are both concerned with themselves, as is underscored by the repetition of the word “ic” throughout their speeches. While Adam’s selfish individual concerns ultimately lead to his downfall, the corporate Christian subject is established through his character at the beginning of the poem and reaffirmed through his repentance at the end. The poem thus formalizes the split between personal and corporate selves in order to put forth the ideal model of the generic (male) Christian self. The gendering of the subject made explicit in the poem constructs an abject female, the implications of which resonate far beyond the world of the poem. By her actions, Eve realizes the misogynist perception of the inherently weak, false, intellectually challenged female lurking in the Anglo-Saxon imagination. Ottonian Saxony offers a positive contrast to the starkness of late Anglo-Saxon England. On the continent, cultural diversity and a too quickly expanded realm, coupled with strained resources, ecclesiastical

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disagreement or uncertainty, and continuing political strife—internal as well as external—provide a much more fluid and continuously unstable environment.39 The final chapters of the book focus on one brilliant product of the Ottonian renaissance: Hrotsvit von Gandersheim. Selfdescribed as clamor validus Gandeshemensis, “the strong voice of Gandersheim,” Hrotsvit wrote at least eight legends, six dramas, two historical epic poems, and possibly a narrative saint’s life. She is praised as the first known Christian playwright, the first female historian in the West, the first Saxon poet, and even the first feminist, though not all would agree with that last assessment. Reproducing and reiterating categories and issues that define the feminine, Hrotsvit produces viable possibilities for subject formation previously constrained by those categories. Virginity/chastity, vulnerability to rape, sensuality, and beauty are all refocused in Hrotsvit’s specular economy so that, having rescripted and recreated the scene in which physically weak but intellectually complex and competent women triumph over their brutish male opponents, female subjects emerge at the center. This is not to say that Hrotsvit masters the subject possibilities produced in her texts; for one thing, the process of materialization denies a controlling subject. Nor does she necessarily oppose ecclesiastical reform movements current in her own day. Indeed, some of her texts (the conversio legends of Thais and Mary, for example) seem to support strict active enclosure of women monastics. Moreover, Ottonian Saxony was no feminist utopia; Hrotsvit must reckon with underlying negative perceptions of women that had to have informed her own development as subject. Her writing, while a product of the Ottonian renaissance and the reform movements attached to it, nonetheless tests boundaries and exploits weaknesses inherent in naturalized constructions of gender. Throughout her works, but particularly in her plays, Hrotsvit renders such constructions transparent and humanizes traditionally objectified and allegorized female icons of ecclesiastical literature, redefining and reassessing seemingly rigid attitudes and ideals along the way. Her vision of reform includes active female subjects in full voice.

Chapter 2

The Limits of Orthodoxy Being Female and Female Being under Charlemagne

The Carolingian ecclesiastical reforms were concerned mostly with establishing coherence and unity in a volatile and fragmented world. The reformers strove, above all, for conformity—standardization of religious rituals and texts, codes of behavior for ecclesiastics, legal codes, and even, to the extent possible, language itself. From an ecclesiastical standpoint, it made sense that reform measures be instituted to bring newly converted regions under tighter rein, for the Church was otherwise at risk of dissolution and fragmentation. As a missionary, Boniface was keenly aware of that danger; as a bishop he initiated reform measures.1 As Erich Auerbach observes: The confusion of the liturgy and the imprecision of the administrative language had become intolerable; unity and order had become a necessity. In painstakingly restoring a halfway correct Latin for use in the liturgy, the administration, and literary expression, the reformers took the only course that was natural and possible in view of the circumstances and the prevailing tradition. No one possessing the power to act could reasonably have done anything else. (Literary Language and Its Public 123) Episcopal seats at Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, as well as the more remote regions of Regensburg and Salzburg, allowed bishops to monitor recent and therefore potentially volatile areas of conversion. But reform measures also seem to have targeted women specifically, advocating strict enclosure for female monastics, along with other ritual 27

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and intellectual restrictions. Nuns who heretofore had relatively free rein to perform their tasks were now to remain cloistered, cut off from public contact and active participation in ecclesiastical matters. Locked away securely in their respective cloisters, the nuns were effectively dead to the lay public, existing only as icons of female piety, as holy relics. These women had thus sunk from being agents to being symbols. The restriction of monastic women reflects what Schulenburg sees as a cultural trend to delimit a separate feminine sphere in the realm of the domestic and private.2 Female enclosure is only one aspect of ritual purification embraced by reformers, and is perhaps even justifiable, to some extent, as a protective measure.3 As noted earlier, Germanic women may have relished the prospect of isolating themselves from an increasingly hostile society. The larger ideology of purification, which became a hallmark of ecclesiastical reform, however, had less to do with protecting women than with protecting men from a perceived pollution associated with the feminine. Several scholars have noted that reform has traditionally been restrictive and even dangerous for women.4 And so it has. If Schulenburg is correct that Carolingian reform ideology sought “to limit women’s public involvement and their leadership activities in the church and society through the demarcation of a ‘proper’ feminine sphere and a delineation of female nature, abilities, rights, and responsibilities” (Forgetful of Her Sex 108), the notion of female impurity and the need for ritual purity provided an effective way of bounding that feminine sphere. Based on the long-standing view that women are naturally unclean and inferior,5 reform measures aimed to purge all sacred objects, including monks and even nuns themselves, from female contact or contamination. Nuns were to deny or suppress their female nature as much as possible in order to remain pure. Of course they could never really lose the mark of their gender, though many tried, and so had to be excluded from active and important (male) circles and safely enclosed. Frankish bishops restated early laws of ritual purity and extended these precepts to prohibit women from receiving the Eucharist in their hands or touching the altar cloth. And, in 789, Charlemagne restricted the role of female religious further, forbidding even abbesses from performing any sacerdotal functions whatsoever. Item 75 of the 789 Capitulary reads: It is heard that some abbesses, against the custom of the holy church of God, give benedictions with the laying on of a hand

The Limits of Orthodoxy

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and with the sign of the holy cross over the heads of men, and also that they veil virgins with sacerdotal blessing. Know that this must be utterly forbidden by you, most holy fathers, in your parishes.6 While this particular item reveals a desire to restrict female autonomy, it also attests that women are, in fact, still assuming sacerdotal roles, despite earlier mandates. Other evidence of female rule (or misrule) is found in Charlemagne’s General Capitulary, also of 789: About small monasteries where nuns dwell without a rule, we wish there to be held a regular congregation in one place, and let the bishop provide where that can be; and we wish that no abbess presume to leave the monastery without our command, nor permit those subject to her to do so; and let their cloister be well locked, and by no means let [anyone] there presume to write or to send love letters.7 Here, mandated supervision by the bishop and strict enclosure demonstrate that the relative freedoms of female religious now were cause for concern. The notion that nuns are sending, and presumably receiving, love letters,8 whether real or imagined, bespeaks both masculinist distrust of female autonomy and the uncomfortable realization that complete regulation is never fully possible. The fact that this item targets only female communities suggests a widespread and official distrust of female rule. Abbots were apparently trusted to govern their communities effectively, and they could come and go at their own discretion, without the bishop’s approval. Charlemagne restated the need for enclosure in a synodal decree issued in 799: That abbesses should absolutely not leave their monasteries except through the consent and license of their bishops, and the same bishops should beware lest they [i.e., the bishops] refuse them when they must go out of their monasteries for their own benefit. And let the abbesses take with them such nuns [as may help in their business], about which things [business], upon their return, they should not tell the other nuns, because that is very destructive, as is written in the holy rule.9

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Because ten years had passed since the earlier decree, we can surmise that strict enclosure was not easily enforced. The caveat to bishops may suggest that some took these restrictions and their authority to an unwise extreme. All in all, it would seem that neither Charlemagne nor the Church spoke with absolute authority, though they certainly tried. Finally and perhaps most interesting, these later statutes also concern themselves with gender-appropriate dress: “that nuns not dress in men’s garments, that is rocho and fanones, but only such as are women’s clothes.”10 Apparently clothes really do make the man. Either women were crossdressing at this time, or it was feared they might. Even if women used men’s clothing only for the most practical purposes, such as warmth, ease in performing certain chores, and so on, they may still have seemed presumptuous or arrogant in so doing. Clothing, as a marker of gender identity, would offer certain women access to roads now closed to them. With the right vestments they might erase (or at least conceal) the mark of their femininity and refashion themselves into autonomous subjects. The fact that this statute exists attests to the indomitable will of certain women, and the possibility that they might succeed as male imposters seems to be a source of anxiety for the ecclesiastical elite. By the time of Louis the Pious’s reign, women had lost a substantial amount of freedom and power. Janet Nelson remarks that “Charlemagne kept his daughters unmarried: their influence at court during his last years became a scandal that was never permitted to recur. Nearly all the daughters of the ninth-century Carolingians were placed in convents” (“Kingship and Government” 402). Both Charlemagne and subsequent Carolingian rulers kept their daughters unmarried to limit the claims of in-laws on the family; the different strategies tell much about their respective views of women. Charlemagne promoted his daughters’ education and independence, while one of Louis’s first acts as emperor removed from court all single women, directly disobeying his father’s specific precepts for proper rulership, which state: Love God; govern and defend God’s churches from wicked men; be merciful to your sisters, and to your younger brothers, and to your nephews and nieces and all your relatives; appoint loyal and Godfearing servants who will not take bribes; do not throw anyone out of his honor without good grounds for the decision. (cited in Nelson, “Frankish Kingdoms,” 110; Nelson’s emphasis)


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Louis’s act can be construed as necessary housecleaning in order to establish his own power base. As Nelson remarks: Louis had already grasped the levers of power and patronage at court, sending his sisters to West Frankish convents, his kinsman Wala, tonsured, to Corbie, and Wala’s brother Adalhard, erstwhile abbot of Corbie, into monastic exile at Noirmoutier on an island off the coast of Aquitaine. Nearly all Charlemagne’s old guard were removed from positions of influence. (ibid. 112) In the case of the Carolingian court, it would seem that women wielded enough authority to pose a genuine threat. Louis, at any rate, was taking no chances. In Frankish society more generally, independent women were fast becoming suspect, and female autonomy was perceived as sexual aberration. As Wemple explains: In 829 the Council of Paris declared that women who had veiled themselves were evil; they tempted and trapped priests and were to be barred from churches. A widow had to wait thirty days after her husband’s death to be veiled, and then had to join a convent. Priests could veil widows only with the consent of bishops. The Council of Paris also put the final seal on earlier legislation limiting the function of women religious to the lighting of candles and the ringing of church bells. The status of these women, the council declared, was not different from that of ordinary laymen. (Women in Frankish Society 167) Latinate values seem to have triumphed. Within the framework of the dominant ecclesiastical ideology, even women who devoted themselves to God and no longer functioned in their socially prescribed role as wife and mother could not fully escape their tainted bodies—hypersensual and polluted—and therefore could not be trusted to handle any sacred functions or items. More important than the reduction in status was the dangerous ideological premise of this mandate, that women are naturally inferior: It is against the divine law and canonical instruction for women to intrude on the other side of holy altars, to touch impudently

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Reform and Resistance the consecrated vessels, administer for priests [helping them don] sacerdotal vestments, and, what is even worse, more indecent and more inappropriate, to distribute the body and blood of the Lord to the people. . . . It is certainly amazing [since this practice, illicit for secular men, has crept into the Christian religion] that women, whose sex by no means makes them competent [or: to whose sex it is absolutely inappropriate], despite the laws, were able to gain license to do things that are prohibited even to secular men.11

This is another restatement that may imply continued lack of enforcement as women continued to flout conciliar mandates. Louis more than Charlemagne, however, was likely to see that these laws were enforced. Centuries before, Augustine and the other Fathers of the Church had been able to separate (certain) women, to some extent, from their biological form and to acknowledge spiritual and intellectual potential almost on a par with that of men.12 But in the reform-era Frankish Church, women were virtually trapped within their demonized bodies. With women’s roles in the Church having been thus restricted, it is not surprising that female monasteries began losing power and popularity. According to Wemple, women came to accept more easily the position of domestic subservience allotted them because the monastic life offered nothing better: Excluded from institutions of authority, [women of the aristocracy] were relegated to more passive, sexually determined roles both in secular life and in monasteries. The greater security and dignity noble women gained as wives as the result of the introduction of lifelong monogamy served to enhance their dependency on men, facilitating the differentiation of domestic and public activities along sex lines. (“Consent and Dissent” 194) In both realms, women seem to have been relegated to a mediated, or secondary, subject position. It is well to remember, however, that these pronouncements of restrictions also attest to the continued presence of contesting ideologies. The insistence on and restatement of such mandates provide evidence of deviance rather than strict adherence, and those deviations may have been too common to dismiss as marginal and heretical. Rather than seeking to uncover a binary opposition between practice and ideology, we may envision a multitude of ideologies and practices, some-


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what related but distinguished by cultural attitudes and values, tempered by political and economic necessity, all vying for hegemonic control. The early Carolingian period was anything but settled, and it is for this reason that members of Church and State alike pushed for reform. While Louis’s reign proved detrimental to female monastics within his reach, even the most stringent reforms proved untenable in that cultural milieu and were doomed to collapse. The situation that required such energetic efforts toward unification and order, therefore, offers the modern scholar a unique opportunity to consider competing hegemonies. Perhaps the greatest resistance to unification came from among the reformers themselves. They did not disagree on the need for unification, but they could not agree on the code of that unification. Whose values should determine the shape of orthodoxy? Considering women’s place in Carolingian society and the theoretical question of female subjectivity during this reform period, we may recognize at least two positions: the official Roman ecclesiastical position, represented below by Theodulf, bishop of Orléans, and the more popular Celto-Germanic position, presented in the works of Alcuin and others of the palace school. These descriptors, though admittedly inexact and over-simplified, serve to link two competing trends to broad cultural attitudes. The Roman Christian position, as reflected in the conciliar mandates, Charlemagne’s capitularies, and the writings of Theodulf, actively strives to limit the role of women in Church and society; it adheres to the positive definition of woman as helpmeet and to the negative vision of woman as a weak, evil seductress. The CeltoGermanic position, as presented in the works of Alcuin, interprets both scripture and canon law more positively for women, retaining some of the more egalitarian ideals from Celtic and Germanic societies. The presence of two disparate voices among the hegemonic elite shows that even the dominant discourse is not univocal. And if dissenting voices can be heard there among the elite, what might that suggest about the populace? Charlemagne pulled the best and brightest to his court from all over Europe. Theodulf, bishop of Orléans and counselor to both Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, came from Spain and became one of the most prominent members of the reform movement. He clearly espouses the Roman position in his Capitula ad presbyteros parochiae suae, restating some of the restrictions against women. First, chapter six cautions: Let women never approach the altar when the priest is celebrating Mass, but let them stand in their own places and there let the

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Reform and Resistance priest receive their offerings to offer them to God. For women ought to be mindful of their weakness and of the infirmity of their sex, and therefore fear to touch anything holy in the ministry of the church. These also laymen ought to fear, lest they undergo the punishment of Uzzah, who, when he wished to touch against the rule the ark of the Lord, died, struck by the Lord.13

Chapter twelve is concerned not with the purity of the mass ritual, but with the purity of the priests themselves: Let no woman live with a presbyter in a single house. Although the canons permit a priest’s mother and sister to live with him, and persons of this kind in whom there is no suspicion, we abolish this privilege for the reason that, following those women or occasioned by them, other women not at all related to him may come and entice him to sin.14 For Theodulf, women are clearly weak, polluted, inherently seductive, and therefore always dangerous. Such reductive views are also found in Theodulf ’s Contra Iudices where he speaks of Solomon: “He would have been a wise king, just in laws and in government, had he not been caught in feminine snares.”15 Later, the first couplet of the section Peter Godman entitles “A Woman’s Wiles” (because it depicts the seductress in action) reads: “Watch out for your own wife,/let her not corrupt your mind with temptations!”16 I agree with Godman that Contra Iudices is neither a personal account of Theodulf ’s own experience as a judge, nor merely a satire on the judicial system of the period, but a commentary on the nature of human justice (Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance 162). That women figure only as seductresses speaks volumes about the celibate Theodulf ’s perception of female nature. Theodulf ’s poem on the court further bespeaks his anxiety about the potentially powerful women of the royal family, even as he intends to compliment them. Of Charlemagne’s sons, for example, Theodulf writes: Let Charles and Louis stand together, one of whom is a young man, while the other’s face sports the glory of manhood. Youthful and strong, of powerful build, their hearts are fired with enthusiasm and resolute in their purpose.


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Their active intelligence, outstanding virtue, and full piety make both an ornament to their dynasty and a delight to their father.17 The virtues highlighted are, simply through their connection to the young men in the family, clearly defined as masculine qualities, and all are characterized by strength and action. The sons boldly stand together, hearts and bodies strong, motivated, and sure. They not only demonstrate “outstanding virtue” and “full piety,” but “active intelligence” as well. We are not aware that they are under anyone’s gaze until the word “decor” reminds us. Even if the princes are an “ornament” to their dynasty, they are also its future rulers and exhibit the qualities necessary for such a position. Verbs keep these noble attributes active: stent, vehit, vigent, cluunt, redundant. Even the adjectives capax (able, fit) and tenax (tenacious) describe qualities of action and strength. In contrast, the virtues Theodulf ascribes to Charlemagne’s daughters are all passive and static. Charlemagne carries the only verbs as he gazes upon them. And what he sees, what the reader sees as well, are mere statues: Let the king’s fiery gaze now turn to them, may he now look upon the throngs of maidens on either side, on the gathering of young girls lovelier than any other in dress, bearing, beauty, figure, heart and faith: that is Bertha and Hrothrud and Gisela as well; she is one of the three beautiful sisters, even if the youngest.18 They are clearly under their father’s gaze as well as the reader’s. Not only are their qualities stagnant, defined by the phrase, “quo non est pulchrior alter, / Veste, habitu, specie, corpore, corde, fide,” but these virtues are listed in the blandest terms possible. There is no color, no action, no emotion: the girls are completely objectified and wholly superficial. Perhaps not surprisingly, Theodulf inserts his praise of the king’s young new wife, Liutgard, between the praise/spectacle of Charles’ daughters and a general wish/command for all the king’s children. While he acknowledges her active intellect, the qualities stressed relate to her passivity: The lovely maiden Liutgard joins their ranks; her mind is inspired with acts of kindness.

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Reform and Resistance her beautiful appearance is surpassed only by the grace of her actions, she alone pleases all the princes and people. Open-handed, gentle-spirited, sweet in words, she is ready to help all and to obstruct none. She labours hard and well at study and learning, and retains the noble disciplines in her memory.19

Even words that suggest action are buried under heavily passive constructions, immobilized in adjectival form, for example, or verbs with only a weak force to begin with (e.g., “she . . . pleases”). She does “labour” at learning, Theodulf tells us, and is able to remember what she has learned. Theodulf ’s idea of feminine virtues is encapsulated in this image of Liutgard. Perhaps he hoped that she might live up to them, even if she had not actually demonstrated all of those qualities: kindness, beauty, generosity, grace, sweetness. In short, she is nonconfrontational, entirely passive, and modeled, no doubt, on an image of the Blessed Virgin, who possessed knowledge at least as great as the disciples, but knew her place and remained silent. This depiction of female virtue equates the term virago with virgo, an important conflation of meaning. That Theodulf uses virago, which typically refers to female heroes and warriors, to describe the young girl soon to be Charlemagne’s queen seems overblown and misplaced. The disjunction possibly hints at her insufficiency to fill the role of queen or attempts to redefine a potentially subversive idea (the man-like woman) and deflate the force of the word by identifying it with the sweet, young, passive, and beautiful Liutgard. Theodulf ’s greatest potential insult to the new queen is in his presentation of her among Charles’s children, a comment perhaps on her age, but quite possibly also on what he perceives to be her childish nature or that of women in general. Liutgard is introduced as a companion to the daughters and, following his “praise” of her, Theodulf moves without pause to general instructions for Charles’s children, implying that she is counted among their number: May the king’s dear children be very swift to obey him and vie in dutiful love to please him all the more.20 A few lines later, the posturing of the children according to their gender is telling. While Charles and Louis participate in a sort of military


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ceremony (Charles takes the king’s gloves and cloak, Louis, his sword), the girls bestow kisses on their father, each bearing a different type of fruit or flower: As he sits down let his excellent daughters offer him charming kisses, as duty and dear affection demand. Bertha gives roses, Hrothrud gives violets, Gisela lilies; may each of them offer choice nectar and ambrosia; Ruadhaid brings apples, Hiltrud corn, Theodrada wine.21 The images of fruit and flowers suggest the primary reason for the existence of women in this world: procreation. They are also associated with gems and fancy attire, either displaying the vanity of women or showcasing their ornamental function: Their appearances differ, but their beauty is one and the same. The one is agleam with gems, the other shines with gold and purple, the one is resplendent with sapphires, the other with rubies. One has her appearance set off by a brooch, the other by a girdle, one wears a fine armband, the other a becoming necklace. A dark-red dress suits one, a dress of yellow the other, one wears a snow-white bodice, another a bodice of red.22 Moreover, for the girls, words and actions also are mere adornment primarily for the king’s pleasure: May one please the king with sweet words, another with her laughter, may one delight her father by her walk, another by her jesting.23 Theodulf ’s last characterization of a woman in the poem is that of the king’s only sister, the abbess Gisla: If the king’s most holy sister should happen to be there let her give kisses to her brother, and he to her.

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Reform and Resistance Let her restrain her great joy with a tranquil expression, and bear in mind the joys fitting for the eternal husband. Should she request that the ways of Scripture be revealed to her, may the king, himself taught by God, teach her.24

At face value these lines seem positive, addressed as they are to Charlemagne’s “most holy” sister. But the message here is clear. As a bishop, Theodulf may well have disapproved of the abbess’s occasional presence at court, particularly given the recent mandates forbidding all consecrated women to leave the cloister. His statements on how she ought to behave may signal his disapproval of her usual behavior, or they may simply be a reminder of his place in relation to hers, by publishing unnecessarily directions for her conduct before the whole court. Finally, the last couplet, while it certainly would have flattered Charles, a barely literate warrior with only limited understanding of Christian doctrine, can only have been a great insult to a woman who had devoted her life to the understanding, teaching, and dissemination of the scriptures.25 Theodulf ’s views would not be noteworthy had he not been so influential in reforming ecclesiastical structure and practice. After all, enough individuals seem to have held the same opinions. Theodulf ’s role of bishop and imperial counselor makes him seem the figure of orthodoxy and therefore legitimizes his biases. But, again, orthodoxy was not as rigidly defined in that early period, and we have yet to decide what was considered orthodox in the Frankish Church. Theodulf ’s position and the earlier ecclesiastical mandates are significant to gender studies in their insistence on restricting social, ecclesiastical, and political activities and presumptions of female religious; at the same time, however, the need for continuous restatement may indicate how little regarded these mandates were. No doubt a constant source of anguish for Theodulf, the royal family provided a poor model of his ecclesiastical ideals and fell far short of the idyllic portrait in his panegyric. Class privilege enabled the women in the family to defy increasingly rigid rules of conduct and enclosure.26 Royal female religious apparently came and went as they pleased, with or without a bishop’s consent, spent significant periods of time at court, wrote letters, and received visitors. One striking example of a woman defying the newly scripted social codes of conduct is Rodtrud, Charlemagne’s favorite daughter, who did not remain a virgin, though she did remain a


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nun. Around 801 she gave birth to a son, Louis, who eventually became abbot of St. Denis. That he took a primary name (rather than a secondary name that would declare him illegitimate, like his cousins Nithard and Hartnid) and also was rewarded with such a prominent position speaks to the sanctioning of his birth, if not his conception. Though not acknowledged by Charlemagne, the child’s father, Rorigo, eventually became a count under Louis the Pious. Rodtrud is not the only wayward female in the royal family. The most famous of Charlemagne’s female relations do not even remotely comply with the Church’s prescribed behavior for women. Gisla, abbess of Chelles, Soissons, Jouarre, and Faremoutiers, Brie, comes and goes as she pleases, visiting the court at will, apparently. Gundrada, Charlemagne’s young cousin, quite possibly a scholar and a teacher at the palace school, remains a virgin, but does not leave court until Louis the Pious forces her to do so, against Charlemagne’s wishes, when he takes the throne. Bertha has a long-standing relationship with Angilbert, one of Charlemagne’s chief counselors, and even conceives two children. It is unclear whether this liberality indicates royal privilege to do as they pleased regardless of the rules, ignorance of those rules, or lack of interest in ecclesiastic objectives. Whatever the answer, such flexibility in the face of increasingly strenuous antifeminist ecclesiastical ideology attests to royal and cultural uncertainty about the Church’s position on women and dovetails nicely with the ambivalence toward that position demonstrated by other members of the ecclesiastical elite, like Alcuin. Ecclesiastical mandates issued in the name of reform may have been regarded more as guidelines or suggestions that arose out of discussions than rigid law codes born of formal hearings. In contrast to Theodulf, one reformer, Angilbert, a member of Charlemagne’s circle of scholars and later abbot of St. Riquier, recognized women as intellectual peers. In his poem on the court, Angilbert focuses on the intellectual atmosphere at court, particularly the palace school, naming scholars, praising poetry and those who share his love of it, and missing his students. While he gives Charlemagne’s second daughter, Bertha,27 an honorable mention along with her younger sisters and Pippin, Angilbert singles out Gisla and Rodtrud. Like Theodulf, he praises Gisla’s virginity: I greet you too, Gisela, God’s holy virgin, distinguished sister of David, in my neverending poem.

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Reform and Resistance You are loved, I know, by Christ, your husband and the heaven’s glory, for to Him alone you have dedicated your body.28

That he does not explicitly mention her intellectual or scholarly achievements is puzzling, however, since he does praise Rodtrud’s: Hrothrud, a maiden celebrated for her intellect, loves poetry; she unites great beauty with high moral qualities. Hurry through the shining fields, pick flowers, and make a beautiful crown for yourself from the meadows of the ancients.29 This representation of Rodtrud is particularly striking because she emerges as an active and aggressive seeker of knowledge. She is encouraged to run, collect, and finally to fashion a crown for herself. Learning as a gathering of flowers is a common conceit of the period and a favorite of Alcuin in particular, but its use in relation to women is, to my knowledge, rare. Because the poem is directly linked to the palace school, both women are implicitly singled out for their intellectual merits, albeit unevenly so. One explanation for the disparity in Angilbert’s treatment may stem simply from his relative familiarity with each of them. Gisla, distanced from Angilbert in both age and position, is here given the respect due her; Rodtrud, however, seems to have associated with Angilbert at court and therefore is treated with greater intimacy. During her engagement to the Empress Irene’s son Constantine VI,30 Rodtrud learned Greek from Paul the Deacon. Since she is well trained in other areas as well, it is not inconceivable that she attended the palace school; she may even have been a fellow student of Angilbert. It is difficult to imagine girls, even the king’s daughters, receiving the privilege of private tutorials when the boys had to learn in a group setting. Given the limited availability of teachers, even at the palace school, classrooms of both boys and girls may have been a matter of practicality. In any case, Angilbert seems to know Rodtrud first as a scholar and second as “clarissima virgo.” To him she is not simply a virgin or even a receptacle of information, a passive reader, but an aggressive scholar who, like the others at the palace school, would “Hurry through the shining fields, pick flowers, and make a beautiful crown . . . from the meadows of the ancients.”


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One poem, ascribed variously to either Angilbert or Einhard, describes women on parade at the court at Aachen prior to Pope Leo’s visit to Paderborn just after his blinding and just before Charlemagne’s coronation as Holy Roman Emperor. The poem in its entirety (such as we have it) celebrates Charlemagne as father and defender of the expanding Frankish realm, soon to be the Holy Roman Empire, and of the Church. It recounts the unfortunate blinding and mutilation of Pope Leo and Charlemagne’s swift and sure response to that incident. The concluding portion of the poem, no longer extant, probably celebrated Charlemagne’s coronation. Epic in scope, the poem does not highlight female power or achievement; its main subject, after all, is Charlemagne. And yet, describing the royal pageantry at Aachen, the poem positions Charlemagne’s daughters prominently at the center rather than on the margins, assertively posturing themselves, rather than passively providing the backdrop in front of which their father and brothers march. Charlemagne’s eldest daughter, Rodtrud, leads, accompanied by a choir of nuns. She is followed by Bertha and her female companions, and then her sister Gisla, who leads her nuns through the streets as if on parade: “Gisla follows after them, flashing brightly, accompanied by her choir of virgins; veiled in gold and purple, she sparkles, the woman shines in the fabric, soft purple garments gleaming from the threads, voice, face, hair swing rapidly, glittering in the light.”31 More regal than monastic here, though certainly appearing before the public in both capacities, the women of Charlemagne’s court, secular as well as religious, create quite a spectacle. While it is entirely possible that Angilbert or even Einhard wrote this poem, there seems to be no real justification for either claim. Interestingly, female authorship has not even been considered. And yet noble women of the Carolingian period were well educated and productive as scribes and hagiographers, as well as chroniclers in their various communities. As scholars have recently argued, women may have written more than scholarly tradition has acknowledged.32 Bernhard Bischoff has famously demonstrated the importance of female scriptoria based on the example of the monastery at Chelles, which opened up further investigation into women as writers, not just copyists. Rosamond McKitterick and Janet Nelson have both argued for female authorship and patronage of chronicles. Based on these and other arguments, John Contreni has called for more open-minded assessment of anonymous texts, rather than the traditional assumption that, unless explicitly indicated, texts were

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written by men. Certainly that was true of the “Life of Willibald,” for which male authorship was assumed until the encrypted female name “Hugeburc” was deciphered. In the case of Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa, Anonymous may well have been a woman. Granted, the poem does not rest centrally on the spectacle of the royal women—that is only one moment in the larger political schema of the poem.33 Nevertheless, the attention to the female as well as the male members of the royal family seems unusual and suggests at least a poet less invested in the typical gender hierarchy. As Godman notes, “the description . . . of the imperial family and its entourage is not only the fullest of its kind in Latin poetry since the work of Venantius Fortunatus two centuries earlier; it also incorporates the most elaborate encomium on the women of the Carolingian house yet written by a contemporary author” (“Poetic Hunt” 578). The description itself is as revealing as the poetic eccentricity Godman notes. In that segment of the poem, the women do not stand by passively; while they are well dressed and well decorated, they do not serve as pure ornamentation (as in Theodulf ’s panegyric). Men and women of the court would have been equally well acquainted with Charlemagne’s trip to Paderborn, Pope Leo’s visit there, and, certainly, the court at Aachen, which is most carefully described to impart local and courtly flavor. In addition to eccentricity of style, Godman notes the original use of sources in the poem, which remains unexplained by cataloguers (as Godman notes) and critics alike.34 The poet, Godman tells us, borrows from Venantius’s De virginitate, a text widely known to learned women of the day. Venantius’s poem, Godman explains, provides a particularly useful model for linking earthly rule to divine, an important aspect of Carolingian political thought. However, the Carolingian poem connects the two courts through the women, which makes it more striking and cannot be explained simply as a way to merge heavenly and worldly orders. For Godman, the use of Venantius’s poem on virginity makes sense in practical terms. In his view, a poet wishing to praise a court in which women figure prominently would find Venantius’s poem particularly useful, since it provides a rare model for female pageantry. He cautions, though, that while the presence of women is important, one ought not “to seek realism from it,” arguing: Its author’s imagination had been engaged by symbolic parallels between the earthly and heavenly hierarchies; his object was to


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provide an idealized image of imperial power. To search for cynegetic detail in his work, or to attempt to find analogues for it in nonliterary sources (where the attendance of women at the boar hunt is seldom, if ever, recorded), is therefore futile for predictable and positive reasons. Neither in the annals nor even in earlier poetic encomia on Charlemagne’s court are the true analogues of this hunting scene to be found. (“Poetic Hunt” 579)

Since he does not even consider the possibility of female authorship, Godman can only explain the prominence of women as a vague fact in Carolingian history and as a simple literary device in the poem. Use of the device, moreover, is motivated by the poet’s competitive spirit, not by any real admiration for the women. The poet, in Godman’s view, “concentrates on the appearance of the imperial ladies, arrayed with an opulence surpassing the grandeur of Theodulf ’s earlier description, as a means of evoking splendor imperii ” (581).35 Godman reads the women as ornament or abstraction simply because he is unable to place them historically and seems not to register any substantial difference between Theodulf ’s representation of women and the presentation of women in this poem. His insistence on abstracting female characters that have been so carefully displayed as active misses an opportunity for deeper analysis of the relation of the poem to women (which admittedly is not a concern for Godman). First, the poem conflates the pope’s visit of 799 with his later visit in 804, a visit attended by royal women and documented most clearly by the nuns at Soissons. Moreover, the poem celebrates not just the would-be emperor but his family as well, daughters as well as sons. Since the image of Charlemagne as paterfamilias extends beyond the literal parameters of his own family to the realm at large and, indeed, to the Christian empire he would soon rule, it sends a larger message about how the poet views the nature of the realm and its citizens. The paternal flavor may seem to modern readers to characterize male authorship, but it is certainly not beyond the scope of female authorship or tastes, particularly if the author was a member of Charlemagne’s family. Although Angilbert was close to the family and may have offered a sympathetic reading of the women in Charlemagne’s family, I think it makes more sense to posit a female author. Einhard seemed to care little for Charlemagne’s daughters and his young wife, Liutgard. I would suggest, therefore, that the poet was

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a woman of Charlemagne’s family, probably one of his daughters, or a woman writing under the supervision of one of his daughters, at either Soissons or its mother house, Chelles. Regardless of authorship, the poem displays a familiarity and comfort with female pageantry that defy contemporary guidelines for behavior that demanded female monastic enclosure. These were not just royal women parading in the public sphere; some were royal monastic women accompanied by their choirs of virgins. Significantly, their public appearance is not a main concern of the poem; indeed, it seems quite natural under the circumstances. If the poem was written shortly after Charlemagne’s coronation, it may attest to the popularity and strong public presence of the women in his family. If written after his death and Louis’s purging of the court, it shows, perhaps, a nostalgic impulse to venerate female royalty and to oppose Louis’s restrictive reforms. In any case, the poem demonstrates a strong interest in royal women, monastic as well as secular. It was in the early stage of reform that Alcuin was invited to join Charlemagne’s circle of advisors. He became master of the palace school at Aachen in 789, but also functioned as counselor to Charlemagne in spiritual as well as political matters, particularly those related to the Church. That he was considered a representative voice of the Church is clear in his various assignments: revising the Bible and standardizing the liturgy in an effort to unify the practice of Christian faith; advising missionaries such as Arno, archbishop of Salzburg, and sending them approved texts; and heading the committee to dispel the adoptionist controversy, to name a few of his responsibilities. Many scholars consider him the voice of orthodoxy and a responsible transmitter of the words of the Fathers—ever faithful and unoriginal, a transmitter, not a creator.36 As a disseminator of knowledge, and, particularly in relation to the scriptures and the writings of the Fathers, Alcuin maintained what he believed to be the integrity of the Word. Then, as now, he was regarded as one of the chief architects of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance. According to Wallace-Hadrill, for example, Charlemagne was indebted to Alcuin for “the adaptation to Frankish purposes of the great Northumbrian tradition of teaching with its powerful moral basis, its spirituality, its orthodoxy and its deep sense of responsibility” (The Frankish Church 208). His function as a transmitter of orthodoxy is, I think, generally overstated, since we cannot be sure what exactly “orthodoxy” means in this period. Describing Alcuin’s investment in the adoptionist controversy, Wallace-Hadrill depicts him almost as an extremist:


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For Alcuin there was no room for doubt. . . . He could face Elipand and Felix not simply because he was told to do so . . . but because he saw a challenge to what he thought was fundamental. He looked for no fresh interpretation of dogma and cared very little for sophisticated Spanish arguments. All that needed to be established was what the Church had already decided. (ibid. 211) To be sure, Alcuin’s chief objective was to promote and support what he understood to be the basic tenets of the faith. But if he sought no “fresh interpretations,” he also did not seek easy answers. And as centuries of ecclesiastical mandates and exegetical commentary make clear, establishing “what the church had already decided” was no easy task. Luitpold Wallach cautions against the tendency to oversimplify Alcuin’s contributions in the political and ecclesiastical arenas: While it is true that Alcuin’s religious scholarship permits him to be placed among medieval men of approved sanctity, it is incorrect to think of him as a meek, helpless magister. He not infrequently presented himself as such in his letters, but it was in a vein of rhetorical understatement indicative of the conventional modesty expected of a cleric. For Alcuin . . . had an independent mind. He was anything but helpless; on the contrary, he was a man of strong vitality and a large capacity for work, a man who for more than two decades was involved with Charlemagne in many undertakings of an official, and therefore also of a political, nature. . . . The unusual versatility of Alcuin made him the foremost figure in Charlemagne’s brilliant entourage. (Alcuin and Charlemagne 2–3) From a philosophical standpoint, most scholars credit Alcuin with at least initiating renewed interest in logic but do not see him or his students as substantial thinkers. As John Marenbon observes: Historians have not been flattering in their estimates of the philosophical activity carried on at Charlemagne’s court: the most charitable commend Alcuin for his part in introducing various logical texts into the curriculum, but they are unanimous in declaring that he was not at all a thinker in his own right. (From the Circle of Alcuin 30)

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Marenbon goes on to defend Alcuin: “Nowhere in the works certainly attributed to him does Alcuin put forward an argument that is original and striking. Yet in his choice and juxtaposition of secondhand material he reveals a mind clear and resolved in its purpose” (ibid. 30–31). It is, perhaps, his clear sense of purpose and of audience that makes him so effective as a Church leader and as a teacher. According to Marenbon, “[Alcuin’s] works against the Adoptionist heresy efficiently marshal the patristic testimonies for his case. His didactic simplifications of the teachings of Augustine and other Fathers do not indicate an inability on his part to understand their thought in its full ramifications, but rather, the sane judgement of a teacher as to the abilities of a particular audience” (ibid. 31). But Alcuin’s talents reach beyond sensitivity to audience. As a thinker, he shapes the texts he transmits, and he determines how they ought to be received and how they ought to circulate: Alcuin’s use of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae in his De vera philosophia has often been discussed, but scholars have been slow to recognize the skill with which he transforms Boethius’s ideas to his purposes. . . . Another good example of Alcuin’s method of transforming borrowed material is provided by the dicta Albini. . . . Logic was among Alcuin’s strongest interests. He was responsible for putting the Categoriae Decem into general circulation, and, in his De dialectica he provided a useful, though entirely derivative, compendium of logical doctrine. (ibid. 30–31) In this way, Alcuin helped to crystallize what was to become orthodoxy in later centuries. As a teacher and as a voice for the Church, his job was to impart common principles for understanding the universe in Christian terms. And yet, as Marenbon and others have noted, he does not render all of his sources as accurately as he could have. While I agree that Alcuin had to adjust the level of his treatises to the level of his audience, his selection, presentation, and manipulation of material are often original and go beyond the purposes of simplifying or clarifying. Mayke de Jong also credits Alcuin’s originality as a thinker, though in intellectual terms: de Jong credits Alcuin with fostering a sophisticated intellectualism most clearly apparent in his infamous student Gottschalk (“From Scholastici to Scioli”). Perhaps most notably, Abbé Vincent Serralda takes a still more positive view of Alcuin’s philosophical contribution in his transmission of texts (La Philosophie de la Personne chez Alcuin). Like many scholars, and especially drawing on the work of Pierre Riché, Serralda credits Alcuin


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almost entirely with the revival of learning at Charlemagne’s court.37 He exceeds mainstream perceptions of Alcuin’s work, however, in his acknowledgment of Alcuin’s philosophy of the self. Alcuin, Serralda asserts, is concerned to promote the law of the individual (les droits des individus). His various treatises, from De grammatica to Adversus haeresin Felicis, are all concerned to some degree with the law of humanity (droit des hommes). For Serralda, this principle, that the divine image is engraved on human souls (droit que l’Image divine a gravé en leurs âmes) (La Philosophie 6), forms the basis for Alcuin’s notion of selfhood. Consciously or not, Alcuin’s exegetical works, as faithful to the sources as they are, are clearly informed by his own attitudes and values in other ways as well. His Commentary on Ecclesiastes is a case in point. Ecclesiastes 7:27 relates: “And I find more bitter than death woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands.”38 Alcuin refuses to give credence to a literal reading of this misogynist verse: We should not believe that Solomon put forth this opinion about all of womankind. He told what he experienced. On that account he certainly offended God, because he was captured by women—according to the letter (literal sense). According to another, spiritual sense, by the name of woman is designated heretical perversity, which often binds enchanted ones with soft words, because concealed bread and stolen waters are usually sweeter to fools.39 The literal level lacks credibility in Alcuin’s view because it denigrates all women on the basis of one experience. Alcuin first particularizes the sentiment to Solomon’s own negative experience with women (and his accountability to God on that score), and then advances an allegorical reading, in which woman signifies heresy because it is appealing in its softness.40 Alcuin’s understanding of this passage is based, therefore, on a normative understanding of male desire for the beautiful, soft female body, but does not draw any moral judgments about the nature of women or articulate any perceived inferiority, either physical or spiritual. Moreover, the shifting of emphasis first from general to particular and then from literal to figural level, especially after discrediting a universalized literal reading, neutralizes somewhat the antifeminist tone of the passage. In explicating Ecclesiastes 7:28–30,41 an allegorical passage based on the premise that there is no such thing as a good woman, Alcuin begins with the usual gender-based etymological reading and then proceeds to

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a broad-based literal interpretation. Like Augustine, Alcuin uses gender to distinguish between higher and lower reason: “But of all men I found one perfectly good, that is, Christ. . . . Christ alone was found to be good without any stain of sin.” The number one thousand is used here to distinguish saints from sinners, who are designated by the name of “woman” (mulieris). “Vir” (man) therefore is named after “virtute” (virtue), and “mulier” (woman) after “mollitie” (softness). “Woman” can also be understood to signify fleshly works, and “man” (vir), which is named after “virtue” (virtute) for the excellence of the rational soul. But lest he seem to damn the common nature of the human kind with these words, and to make God the Creator of evil, since he is the creator of such ones as cannot avoid evil, he subtly guarded against it and said,“we know that we were created good by God, but because we have been left to free choice, in our error we move to worse things, while we seek greater things, and contemplate various things beyond our capacity.”42 The gendering of body and soul, though a commonplace among the Fathers, is rare in Alcuin’s corpus, but this particular verse from Ecclesiastes offers little space for alternative readings. He therefore offers the traditional explication. In so doing, however, Alcuin tries to maintain the abstraction of gender signification, even as he explicates it, resisting naturalization of the allegory. The names “vir” and “mulier” signify in the context of this verse. But his further explanation of the verse blurs the gender distinction he just outlined in favor of the “communem humani generis naturam.” As I hope to show in the next chapter, although Alcuin follows the traditional Christian thought that equates reason with male and sense with female, he does not extend those abstract principles to lived bodies. In terms of sexuality, Alcuin’s statements on marriage, concubinage, and chastity are all in accordance with the official view of Church and State. Alcuin seemed to have been a champion of chastity, exhorting most of his correspondents to a pure life spiritually and physically. In these statements, however, especially in his letters to Osbert and to all monastics in Ireland,43 Alcuin does not link sexual temptation to gender, nor does he even imply that women are seductresses or unclean, as other ecclesiastics of the period do. His primary focus is on purity of mind and body from the evils of the flesh, which is doctrinally associated with the feminine.


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But, to Alcuin, the body is not feminized, and all ecclesiastics, male and female, are expected to conquer their flesh so that they may strengthen their souls. In a letter to Bishop Higbald and the monks of Lindisfarne, he writes: “Therefore I advise your holiness that in your congregation you strive to observe the regular life established by the holy fathers, in complete obedience in chastity and charity.”44 Virginity’s purpose is to overcome bodily desires; therefore it is neither a strictly feminine virtue, nor a passive one. To Æthelburga, abbess of Flædenbyrg, he writes: It is pleasing to me quite frequently, if only with a few letters, to fulfill my not insignificant duties of salvation to you as my countrywoman and to bring before your thoughts the salvationbringing offerings of my admonition and your promise: that you attempt to preserve the most noble ornament of virginity in an intact body, remembering the glorious reward of the chastity of those who follow the lamb in heaven through the great palaces of the eternal King wherever he will go. What is more blessed than this glory, or more glorious than this blessedness, in which the conqueror [victor] of nature will associate with the author of all creatures?45 The word victor in this passage is also striking, particularly when mirrored by its feminine counterpart, victrix, in a later passage of the same letter: Let the virgin, freed from the fetters of the concupiscence of flesh, not be constrained by the snares of greed; but, the conqueror [victrix] of her own self, let her also not submit to the base cupidity of the world. But with her own works of mercy [sibi misericordiae operibus], as with blossoming boughs, let her strew a path for herself into the citadel of the celestial Jerusalem, where, welcomed by angelic praise, she may be led into the bridal chamber of the great Emperor in eternal delight.46 The use of victor/victrix resists the construction of an exclusively female virgin-type and also emphasizes the forcefulness and autonomy of the role. A virgin succeeds not by passively waiting and keeping herself pure, but by forging her own way “sibi misericordiae operibus.” Here also, virginity is tied in with almsgiving, furthering the notion that true virginal

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purity is achieved through the denial of all materiality, not just one’s sexual desires: Let your virginity also be productive in the generosity of alms; let it not with avaricious hand collect the fleeting treasures of wealth for itself, but with generous mind let it distribute [them] among the members of its own spouse. Let it fly to the high kingdoms of the heavens on the twin wings, charity and chastity.47 Alcuin also incorporates the idea of virgin as soldier: “No soldier shall be decorated who does not fight properly. To fight properly is the duty of the virgin, so that she may be holy in body and in spirit and she may be a bride worthy of the God Christ.”48 Chastity clearly is an active state that requires “daily labor.” Alcuin’s heroic virgin may well reflect the necessity of the times where those who would be virgins must not only conquer their own desires, but also guard against violation, exhibiting not only patience and temperance but “fortitudinem animi.”49 Alcuin’s insistence on chastity is conservative, conventional, and ubiquitous: he believes in an inviolate Ecclesia and untainted virginity. Nevertheless, his exhortations are different from those of contemporary and later writers in that, like Aldhelm, for example, Alcuin clearly sees chastity as a choice, made and maintained willfully and actively, and equally important for both male and female religious. Whereas Aldhelm believed that it was better for a woman to die than compromise her virginity, even when faced with the threat of rape (Schulenburg, “Heroics of Virginity” 37–38), Alcuin believed that, because bodily purity was one of many virtues, a woman could rise up again after such a “fall” and prove herself worthy. Alcuin set himself apart from other Church leaders by demonstrating a sensitivity to the social circumstances and the precarious position of women, especially young women and especially those among a gathering of warriors, as at Charlemagne’s court. His letters always encourage chastity, but they also acknowledge that chastity cannot always be maintained. After Charlemagne’s daughter Rodtrud, a nun, gave birth, Alcuin did not sever ties with her or even rebuke her, but, extending a hand of friendship and support, wondered why she and her aunt Gisla had not written to him.50 The difference in attitudes may best be seen in the following passages in praise of the most esteemed virgin Gundrada, cousin to Charlemagne. First, Alcuin commends Gundrada herself on her exemplary behavior:


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You, most noble virgin and most worthy spouse of God, guard yourself in complete chastity of body and soul; because, according to the Apostle, a virgin of God ought to be chaste in body as well as soul. Be an exemplar of all goodness to the other virgins in the palace, so that they may learn from your holy behavior to guard themselves or, falling, to rise up again. 51 This passage is typical of Alcuin’s exhortations. Praise never comes without conditions or instruction for further improvement. Lest Alcuin seem merely to reiterate the conservative perspective, a comparison with a similar passage by Paschasius Radbertus may prove useful. In this passage Paschasius praises Gundrada’s virginity, focusing on bodily purity rather than active being: To these the sister Gundrada clung fast, in constant attendance on her brothers, [unequal] in sex, but [beyond a doubt equal] in virtues.Although the virgin, most noble of nobles, was friendly to the king, and although she dwelled amid the wanton heats of the palace and charms of the youths, even amid caresses of delights and blandishments of passion, yet she alone [as we believe] was worthy to bring back the palm of modesty. She was able [it is said] to cross over foulness of the flesh by an unharmed path.52 Paschasius praises Gundrada sincerely. But several points are striking in the comparison between this account of her merits and Alcuin’s. First, Paschasius assumes that Gundrada resisted the temptations of her own sexual desire; Alcuin uses the word custodire, “guard,” which suggests a fending off of sexual advances at least as much as resisting temptation. His statement is therefore more open and does not preclude the possibility of sexual assault or harassment. Second, Paschasius views Gundrada’s reward, the palm of virginity, as a direct result of bodily purity, which later in the passage contrasts with Adalhard’s own palm of merit for his active life in emulation of Christ. They are equal in virtue, Paschasius tells us, but Adalhard clearly stands apart as the active achiever. Moreover, Paschasius’s parenthetical qualifications, “as we believe” [ut credimus] and “as it is said” [ut dicitur], call into question her virginal status even as he appears to praise it. Alcuin’s exhortation to Gundrada, on the other hand, reminds the reader that the woman’s duty is indeed

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an active one in guarding and maintaining both physical and spiritual selves. Alcuin’s distinction between bodily purity and spiritual suggests that the spirit may remain pure even if the body does not, as in the case of rape. Even if chastity is the ideal, loss of chastity, in body or in soul, is not irreversible. One may rise up again.53 Clearly, although reformers like Theodulf enjoyed a certain importance throughout the Carolingian period and dictated the tone of continental as well as insular Benedictine reforms over the next three centuries, they were still not the only voices to be heard. Under the reign of Charlemagne, the tenor at court and throughout the kingdom seems not to have been uniformly restrictive for women. Alcuin of York, Charlemagne’s imported equivalent of “minister of education,” was surely a member of the ecclesiastical elite of the day and, given his position at court, perhaps the most influential agent of reform in his time. Nevertheless, he offers, as we will see in the next chapter, a striking contrast to the limited views of women put forth and mandated by Theodulf and the ecclesiastical councils over which he held sway.

Chapter 3

Soul Searching Alcuin of York and His Circle of Female Scholars Alcuin’s transcendence of prevalent attitudes toward women most probably stems from his belief that the intellect is the heart of the subject. For the most part, Alcuin saw not bodies, but intellects in various positions and situations. It was his job to enhance the intellectual atmosphere of court and, by extension, Frankish society. In keeping with his position as “minister of education,” Alcuin was instrumental in setting up a farreaching educational program for the laity as well as the clergy. In this capacity he may have been influential in defining gender perceptions in the period, since educational reform has great potential to erase or to promote gender differences. In Wemple’s view, however, the new program of learning was no less restrictive for women than other reform measures because it had as its purpose the creation of an elite that was literate in Latin, well-versed in Christian doctrine, and familiar with the Roman Liturgy. Because women could neither preach nor participate in the liturgy, there was no need to introduce this new program in female communities. (Women in Frankish Society 188) But women were still participating in the liturgy. At least monastic women were observing the canonical hours, as a letter from an unnamed abbess regarding the mysteries of the canonical hours suggests.1 And Latin literacy among women in this period is well attested. If monastic education proved restrictive for women religious for political or economic reasons, I would argue that it did so in spite of, not because of, Alcuin’s efforts. Alcuin taught women of the court himself 53

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and in his letters always encouraged women as well as men to keep studying the scriptures. Late in the ninth century, Dhuoda, a laywoman, wrote a handbook for her son in Latin.2 Since Dhuoda must have been educated during the period Wemple claims restricted women’s education most, we must at least acknowledge the impossibility of absolute enforcement of reform ideologies. Such reforms, however restrictive, no doubt also kept Chelles and other female scriptoria thriving, since all texts were to be carefully edited and disseminated. Judith, the second wife of Louis the Pious, was known for her learning, as was her mother. Moreover, greater learning is demonstrated by women in later establishments on the outskirts of the empire, in institutions founded by such pupils and offshoots of Alcuin’s palace school as Charlemagne’s cousins Adalhard, Wala, and Theodrada.3 Education was certainly regimented later in ways that prevented women from benefiting from it; but during the early stages of Carolingian reforms, and under the supervision of Alcuin, women were sometimes key players and often demonstrated their intellect actively and politically, not just in the cloistered scriptoria. As an educator, Alcuin had a tremendous opportunity to shape not just minds, but attitudes as well, since it is not just what is taught, but how that matters. While we know little of his methods and approaches, one dialogue written for the young Pippin imparts much through what it omits from its sources. The question-and-answer technique known as altercatio or disputatio was a popular device for practicing syllogisms, basic logic, and wit. Alcuin makes frequent use of the question-and-answer technique in his religious writings, following Augustine and others (Questions on the Heptateuch, Questions on Genesis, Questions on the Old and New Testaments, etc.). Alcuin’s secular question-and-answer dialogue written for Pippin derives, at least in part, from a legendary conversation between the Emperor Hadrian and the philosopher Epictetus. Embedded in the wise sayings and given credence by virtue of the legend, gender-biased and antifeminist statements and language are easily overlooked. While Alcuin’s early source texts, the Altercatio Hadriani et Epicteti philosophi and the Disputatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi,4 concern themselves mostly with natural phenomena (What is the moon? What is the sun?) and philosophical questions (What is hope? What is life?), all questions related to people use the term “homo” rather than “vir” or “mulier.” In contrast, however, the Köln Hadrian/Epictetus text, a ninth-century version (also reconstructed by Suchier), treats men and women separately:

Soul Searching Q. A. Q. A.

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What is man (vir)? The image of God and a miniature world.5 What is woman? A necessity to man and mother of men and the calamity of the foolish, the race of serpents.6

The St. Gall Disputatione, also dating to the ninth century, shows a concern for the question of gender as well, as it opens with the question “What is man (vir)?” and offers the same response: “Imago Dei et mundus exiguus” (126). Question 14 then takes up the question of woman and again echoes the Köln manuscript. These antifeminist dicta suggest, if only indirectly, that man is the primary subject and woman is supplemental, not a subject in her own right, but existing for the sole purpose of breeding sons. In its revision of the earlier texts, Alcuin’s version keeps neither question and focuses only on truths related to human beings generally. The only time he departs from the universal is in response to question 22, “What is a beard?” to which he replies: “The distinction of sex, the honor of age.”7 This particular query and response seem appropriate to a disputation involving a boy coming of age. It is significant that Alcuin’s text targets a young Pippin, because it must then impart basic tenets at a simple level, one that often carries hidden assumptions that easily become implicit truths. A sampling of Alcuin’s questions follows: 8. Pippin. What is a human? Alcuin. A possessor of death, a transient traveler, guest in this place. 19. P. What is a head? A. The peak of the body. 20. P. What is a body? A. The home of the soul. 27. P. What is the face? A. The image of the mind. 28. P. What is friendship? A. Equality of minds.8 Notice that the head is not here interpreted as masculine or associated with male rule, as it might have been in ecclesiastical terms, but simply

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the top of the body. Likewise, the body is not the servant of either head or soul, but the dwelling of the soul. The face is the image not of the soul, but of the mind.9 That is, it reveals moods. One furrows one’s brows when vexed or perplexed, for example. Finally, friendship is an equality of minds. Other texts simply define it as “concord,” but this is much more specific—like minds attract. The importance of the interior person, also its lack of gender, and the cooperation of body, mind, and soul are worth noting. This teaching text outlines the fundamentals of human existence; that it does so without distinguishing genders constitutes a significant departure from the tradition. Alcuin’s attention to language also deserves notice. Language, obviously important to the genre of disputation, here emerges as a subject in its own right. One might guess Alcuin’s fascination with language as he opens his Disputatio with four questions related to oral and written language: P. A. P. A. P. A. P. A.

What is a letter? The guardian of history. What is a word? The revealer of the mind. Who generates words? The tongue. What is a tongue? The scourge of the air.10

Interestingly, the Köln Altercatio, contemporary with Alcuin’s text, defines “verbum” as “the expression of men (virorum) and link of the wise,”11 regarding both words and wisdom as a privilege and concern of men alone. Once again, Alcuin resists gender specificity and the naturalization of male superiority: for him, the genderless tongue speaks the word, which then reveals the mind. His other answers also promote gender neutrality as they focus on the mechanics of speech. In his personal letters, along with mainstream ecclesiastical principles, Alcuin stresses the importance of education. Learning to him was the surest way to come to know God. Thus, he writes to Bishop Ethelbert and the community of Hexham: Therefore the reading of holy books is necessary, for in them one may understand what ought to be followed and what avoided. Let the light of knowledge remain in you, and through you it may

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illumine other churches, so that your praise shall resound in the mouth of all and an eternal reward shall await you in heaven. Each will receive an appropriate reward for his/her labor. Diligently teach boys and adolescents the knowledge of books to the way of God, so that they may be successors worthy of your honor and also intercessors for you. . . . One who does not sow, shall not reap, and one who does not learn, does not teach. And without teachers such a place can be saved either not at all or with great difficulty. Alms are great to feed the poor with food for the body, but it is greater to satisfy the hungering soul with spiritual doctrine. Just as a provident shepherd takes care to seek out the best pastures for his flocks, a good teacher ought to procure with complete diligence the pastures of everlasting life for his subjects. For the multiplying of flocks is the glory of the shepherd, and a multitude of wise ones is the wellbeing of the world.12 To this end learning had to be based firmly in the scriptures. The Greek philosophers, however erudite, were not, in Alcuin’s view, truly wise. Only Christians had access to true wisdom, but, importantly, that meant any and all Christians. Out of about 300 letters, twenty-four are exclusively to women, and two addressed to men include greetings for women. The paucity of letters to women may indicate a poor survival rate more than Alcuin’s actual practice. The letters to and from women that have survived usually have a political or liturgical connection, although they are not overtly official. Certainly the lack of official correspondence with women reflects their restricted ecclesiastic and political positions. Nevertheless, the presence of so many letters addressed to women, relative to other collections, demonstrates some degree of female agency in ecclesiastical and political arenas in late eighth-century England and Francia and attests to Alcuin’s own personal connection with and respect for women. Six women stand out among his more intimate correspondents. In Francia are Gisla, Charlemagne’s sister, abbess of Chelles, Soissons, Jouarre, and Faremoutiers, Brie; Rodtrud, Charlemagne’s daughter and a nun at Chelles; Gundrada, Charlemagne’s cousin, who resided and seems to have taught at the palace in some capacity. Alcuin’s female correspondents in England include Æðelburga, Offa’s daughter and abbess of Flædenbyrg; Hundruda, an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, like Gundrada, resided at court; and Æðilðyde, wife of Æðelwold Moll and later abbess. These

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women stand out not just because of their noble status, but because the letters reveal a high degree of intimacy and a level of learning and political and social independence comparable to Alcuin’s male correspondents, even if the women were less likely to exercise that independence. Alcuin’s letters to women are remarkable for a number of reasons. They express not only an interest in the education of women, but also respect and admiration for them. As discussed earlier, he generally regards chastity as a virtue for men and women alike, not as the sole responsibility of women; he actually seems to feel more of a need to exhort men to chaste living than women. Wherever possible, Alcuin includes rather than excludes women. In his letter to a Frankish ducal couple, for example, he does not address the man only, nor does he address the wife through her husband, but he greets both of them in Christ and exhorts both to lead pure lives. In his letter to Irish monks, Alcuin also makes clear that, male or female, the same rules apply in devotion to God: Let everyone observe humility in learning, and devotion in teaching, and diligence in works of mercy to paupers and unfortunate people. And let no one, old or young, secular or monastic, man or woman, be ashamed to confess his or her sins and to emend through penance whatever he or she may have committed against the will of God.13 Alcuin seems to recognize what Janet Nelson observes of early medieval gender dynamics in courtly circles. Nelson discusses ways royal and noble women may exert their influence on court and culture, noting ritualistic displays of queenship as well as the royal convent as “an outpost of courtliness” (“Gendering Courts” 190) with the abbess at the helm. While acknowledging limitations placed on women at this time, Nelson nevertheless concludes that: The royal woman, however ethnically labeled, lent herself to Romanisation via the liberal arts, and once romanised, voiced with book-learning, could become, as bride, the medium of civilization to a barbarian court. Whether in secular or religious garb, women could act as exemplars and agents, edified and edifying, of Christian virtues that had ennobling political as well as personal consequences for men and women at court. (197) Nelson’s examples range from Balthild and Radegund in the Merovingian period, to the Empress Judith in the later Carolingian period to offer

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a more nuanced view of women and power during the early Middle Ages. Alcuin’s correspondence with women attests his recognition of their “cultural authority,” to use Nelson’s term, as he strives to influence the politics and piety of his day, mediating among women as well as among men. Most importantly, in my view, Alcuin’s correspondence with women provides evidence that his circle of scholars was not limited to men. The traditional circle includes such figures as Amalarius, archbishop of Metz; Haymon, bishop of Alberstadt; Hilduin, abbot of Saint-Denis; Hrabanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda; Fredegisus, the philosopher and Alcuin’s successor at St. Martin of Tours; Candidus, another bright scholar and philosopher; Adalhard, abbot of Corbie; and Angilbert, poet, chief minister of Pippin, and abbot of St. Riquier. It is a virtual “who’s who” of the Carolingian ecclesiastical elite. If Alcuin’s female correspondents are not as politically and philosophically important, his letters to them are nonetheless as sophisticated as those to men. Each letter reveals a respect for person as well as position. It may be argued that he uses their familiarity for personal advancement or for political reasons, but his communications with women seem to reveal genuine affection, as well. Some contain eloquently convincing avowals of true friendship. In his essay, “Seed Sowers of Peace,” C. Stephen Jaeger has shown that such affectionate terms apparently were not unusual at Charlemagne’s court; such expressions of amicitia, however, seem to have been exchanged primarily, if not exclusively, among men. For Alcuin, however, relationships with women, no less than those with men, bear out his dictum in the Disputatio that friendship is the “aequalitas animorum.” Not insignificantly, Alcuin gives his female correspondents nicknames, as he does his male friends, reflecting their individual traits as well as his affection and, most importantly, inclusion in his circle.14 Thus, Gundrada becomes Eulalia; Æthelburga, Eugenia; Gisla, Lucia; and Rodtrud, Columba. While the practice of nicknaming seems common enough among men, it is worth noting that Gundrada, at least, is apparently unaccustomed to such displays of familiarity between men and women in the clergy because Alcuin feels compelled to explain himself: “Often familiarity is wont to make a change of name. Thus the Lord changed Simon into Peter, and called the sons of Zebedee ‘Sons of Thunder.’ That you will be able to prove already in the old days or in the new.”15 That Alcuin considered women members of his intellectual circle is further suggested by the fact that he dedicated two treatises to women, apparently written at their request; moreover, he wrote a lengthy letter to

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Gundrada outlining the main points of his treatise against the adoptionist controversy, which he had just sent to Charlemagne.16 One abbess had apparently wondered about the distribution of the liturgical prayers in the course of the various canonical hours. According to Leone MatteiCerasoli, who first discovered and published this letter, it is Alcuin’s fullest treatment of the subject and was probably preserved because of its liturgical importance.17 He addresses the letter to “venerable mother,” saying that her “shining wisdom has asked how this observance arose, namely, that seven times in the light and likewise once in the tempest of night, that is, in the middle of the night, praises are sung to almighty God.”18 He also confesses that he does not fully understand the mysteries behind the ritual.19 Alcuin’s letters to Anglo-Saxon women demonstrate a concern with learning and exemplary behavior.20 They also demonstrate that virginity, and female devotion more generally, requires active involvement. To Alcuin, contemplation of God was extremely important for men and women alike, as was spreading the fruits of that contemplation. His friend Hundruda enjoyed a particularly public position, having chosen to reside at Offa’s court rather than in a monastic community. To Hundruda, he writes: May your thought be in the presence of God, in sobriety of life; and your speech in the modesty of truth, and your works in the honor of chastity, so that younger people may be instructed by your examples, older people may rejoice, and all may be edified, so that in the palace of the king [i.e., Offa] devotion of regular life may be apparent in your behavior, and so may the mercy of the highest King keep you in complete prosperity and persevering to the end of life in good works, and deign to reward you with eternal glory.21 Interestingly, Alcuin asks Hundruda to serve as a model of regular life in a secular world—not just for women, but for all members of Offa’s court. The same openness characterizes the following letter, in which Alcuin urges the abbess Æðilthyde actively to teach and guide her charges in her community: But brotherly love should be demonstrated in spiritual admonition and in worldly solace. Just as the body is nourished with food,

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the spirit is nourished with holy doctrine. Therefore whoever can, ought to do both: extend to the pauper what he lacks with a generous hand, and refresh the hungry soul with health-giving admonition, especially those who lead others and are deemed to have the care of many. He must diligently watch over each soul, as if he will render an account for them on Judgment Day. One who negligently keeps the received talent of silver shall suffer a penalty worthy of his negligence. But one who diligently multiplies the Lord’s money shall receive a great reward from his Lord God. Prelates ought to know that the more they labor in the salvation of those subject to them, the greater the glory they shall receive.22 Here Alcuin seems at first to be justifying his role in admonishing his friend, characterizing himself as the source of “salutifera ammonitione.” Instead, we find that he is actually urging her to nourish and admonish others. The subsequent gospel reference reminds her of the responsibility inherent in her task as abbess. She, like Alcuin, is a prelate and must be sure to act as one or prepare to pay dearly. The letter becomes even more concerned with her role as teacher and disciplinarian as it continues: So that you may deserve to hear this voice,23 dearest sister, instruct those subject to you with all perseverance, admonish with words, teach with examples; because their salvation is your recompense. Do not be silent for fear of a person [i.e., hominis]; but for the love of God speak, assert, protest, pray. Publicly castigate those who sin openly, so that the rest may have fear. Admonish some in a spirit of mildness, rebuke others with the pastoral rod, diligently considering what suits whom. Thus, certain diseases are cured through sweet drafts, others through bitter. Honor old women and men as mothers and fathers; love young adults as brothers and sisters; those of lesser age teach as sons and daughters; and have care of all in Christ, so that you may have a reward for all from Christ.24 His words echo II Timothy 4:2 when he demands that Æðilthyde stand firm in her leadership: “Do not be silent for fear of some person; but for the love of God speak, assert, protest, pray.”25 The use of the word hominis rather than feminae or another gender-restricted term in this

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context suggests that she must be prepared to speak out against men as well as women. Alcuin also urges her to “[p]ublicly castigate sinners in the open, so that the rest may have fear,” drawing from Timothy I 5:20.26 Ironically, Alcuin uses these texts to encourage precisely what the first letter to Timothy expressly forbids as the author exhorts: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”27 Not only does Alcuin directly command her not to be silent (“Noli propter hominis terrorem tacere”), but he urges her to use the “pastoral rod” (virga pastorali) as necessary. She is to teach and discipline men as well as women and, as the chief authority figure, to hold her own and enforce all rules according to her discretion. Æthelburga, abbess of Flædenbyrg and Offa’s daughter, is perhaps the most intimate of Alcuin’s Anglo-Saxon women correspondents. Not all of the letters written to her have survived, it seems, as Alcuin assumes an informal stance in the earliest letter we have.28 He calls her Eugenia, which may be a reference to her noble birth, but which may also recall St. Eugenia, who entered a monastery as a man and was charged with rape until she revealed herself as a woman.29 The connection with an androgynous figure may not be as much a personal comment on her bearing or appearance as a deliberate transgression of or challenge to socially imposed gender-specific roles. Alcuin’s first letter to Eugenia is primarily about virginity. She may have only recently left the secular life for the monastic at that point (Dümmler dates this letter to 793–795). This is Alcuin’s typical exhortation to new members of the clergy, male and female, so it does not suggest any bias. It is worth noting that this letter is exclusively to and about her. There is no reference to her father, King Offa, as there certainly could have been. The other letters to Eugenia are more official, at least topically, though not in tone. One stands out in that it reveals Eugenia’s connection with political affairs.30 Following Alcuin’s regret at not being able to come to England as planned and a token hortatory paragraph, he confides in her his concern about the bad state of affairs in England. He voices his condolences for her sister, King Æthelred’s widow, and suggests that she take up the monastic life. He also commends Queen Liudgard to Eugenia, along with her donation, asks that she acknowledge her as a spiritual sister, and advises her to value that alliance: “Command that her name be written in the ecclesiastical records along with the names of your sisters. Honorable is her friendship to you, and useful.”31 The most significant aspect of this letter is Alcuin’s gift to her:

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I have sent to your affection an ampulla and a paten for offering oblation to the Lord God in them with your own hands. And when you behold them with your eyes, say: “Christ, have mercy on your humble servant, Alcuin.” And I want you to have the usage, in the daily custom, of offering a gift to God at the altar. Because the apostolic authority has established this custom, I think it should not be omitted, but diligently observed.32 The presentation of this particular gift encourages continuing active service. Alcuin is not urging her to perform the eucharistic function of a priest, but to perform the offertory, the offering of the bread and wine to the priest for blessing.33 He is stressing her active participation in the rite, in other words, rather than somehow restricting the practice for women as in the later Carolingian church. Stephanie Hollis has suggested that this particular letter, in which he also commends Charlemagne’s Queen Liutgard to Æthelburga, along with her gift of an altar cloth, is part of his larger objective of smoothing over the rather touchy relations between Charlemagne and Offa (Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church 298). Hollis also argues that, in encouraging this relationship between queen and abbess, Alcuin points toward monastic segregation. Perhaps. Alcuin’s interest in forging a relationship between these two women, however, seems rather to bespeak his desire to establish stronger relations between the two houses of Offa and Charlemagne. Such an alliance takes for granted that the queen is an active ruling partner rather than simply the wife of the king. Hollis demonstrates convincingly that monastic segregation would be a guiding principle of the later AngloSaxon period, but that Alcuin is here striving for monastic segregation seems unlikely. For one thing, the establishment of the queen as ruler of female monastics would be more effective if Offa’s queen, Cyneðryð, were introduced to an English abbess in this fashion, or Liutgard to a Frankish abbess. Moreover, Alcuin himself visits and corresponds with female monastics, something he might be less inclined to do under strict adherence to rules of monastic segregation. Finally, in a letter to the English Hundruda, the consecrated woman residing at Offa’s court, Alcuin sends greetings to Cyneðryð, saying that “I would have written a hortatory letter to her, if the business of the king permitted her to read my points.”34 Alcuin, who praises Cyneðryð elsewhere for her piety,35 here acknowledges her busy role as ruling partner. Gisla and Rodtrud, Charlemagne’s sister and daughter, are probably the most famous of Alcuin’s female correspondents. Because Alcuin

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generally addresses Rodtrud together with Gisla, she will be considered here in connection with Gisla. Gisla made her presence felt in many ways during her brother’s reign and her own rule over at least four monasteries, and therefore of all of Alcuin’s female correspondents we know most about her. She refused the betrothal arranged for her by her brothers for political reasons and instead became abbess of Chelles, one of the most distinguished royal monasteries, as well as Soissons, Jouarre, and Faremoutiers, most of which were double monasteries, and all of which were important centers of cultural production. The structure of a double monastery in this period placed men as well as women under the supervision of an abbess. While the double monastic structure probably was conceived to ensure male oversight and protection of female monastics, therefore, it also instituted female authority and power.36 As abbess of these famous communities, Gisla would also have come to rule over the lay communities that sprouted around these cultural centers, giving her a wide authority in social and political, as well as ecclesiastical, terms. In that position she remained both active and powerful. She donated a large sum to the royal monastery of St. Denis, and Charlemagne donated a collection of relics of royal proportions to Chelles.37 Gisla also erected a basilica dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. If rules of enclosure applied to her, she ignored them easily enough. Gisla seems to have been frequently at court, and she often received visitors, male as well as female, at her monasteries, one of whom was Alcuin. In a letter to a close friend, probably Arno of Salzburg, Alcuin remarks: I awaited a letter or an envoy from your love. But three times Gisla, the sister of my lord the king, sent letters to me, that I must come to her because of certain necessities. And now, God willing, I will go to visit her, and from there to St. Lupus.And there I greatly expect to remain the entire month of September.38 Gisla also seems to have attended Charlemagne’s coronation at Rome in 800. A letter from Alcuin responds to letters sent from her. In these letters she informed him not only of the coronation, but also about Charlemagne’s defense of Pope Leo III and the swift resolution of his difficulties with the people of Rome. She also gave news of an embassy from Jerusalem arriving in Rome on December 23, just two days before the coronation, with a gift from the patriarch of Jerusalem, which included keys to the holy city.39

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Gisla’s scholarly pursuits are also impressive, though more difficult to document. She seems to have been in charge of a string of scriptoria and participated in the dissemination of texts.40 Janet Nelson argues that the Annales Mettenses priores was written under Gisla’s supervision and that around 800 she composed the Translatio of St. Balthild (Nelson, “Perceptions” 80). Perhaps the strongest testimony of her intellectual accomplishments is found in Alcuin’s praise of not just her purity, but her eloquence: Lucia, live happily in God, most noble virgin, Always into eternity, virgin Lucia, be well! And through sweet verses, may my mathematician be strong, Woman word-powerful, be well without end!41 Although we are left with only one letter from her and evidence of at least one chronicle written under her supervision, this poem suggests that she was known for her poetry as well. More letters to Gisla and Rodtrud than to any of Alcuin’s other female correspondents have survived (no doubt because of their relationship to Charlemagne), and even one letter from them to Alcuin has survived. That Alcuin has a special fondness for Gisla and Rodtruda is most apparent in his salutations. Alcuin dubs them “Lucia” and “Columba,” respectively. The name Lucia most likely recalls the saint celebrated by Aldhelm for her chastity. Columba (L. dove) seems to reflect Rodtruda’s innocence and purity. Alcuin frequently uses Columba, but calls Gisla “Lucia” only twice in the letters that we have. Often he addresses his letters simply to “sister and daughter in Christ” or “mother and daughter in Christ” (because Gisla is an abbess), which suggests a level of intimacy found only in letters to his closest friends, such as Arno. He refers to them as virgines in the more formal letters, such as the dedication of his commentary on John. He also addresses letters to “personis sorori et filiae” and “personis Luciae et Columbae.” The use of the word “personis” is important because it denotes a person with a recognized position.42 Not only is this term genderless, but Alcuin’s use of it here acknowledges these women as important individuals in their own right. The first letter is to Gisla alone and bears a formal salutation: “To Gisla, most beloved virgin in Christ, the humble deacon Alcuin sends greetings.”43 She is an abbess, and they are probably not well acquainted at this point. In this letter, which is one of the longer ones in the

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collection, he encourages her to read the scriptures: “Diligent reading of these letters should refresh you, because in them God is made known, in them the glory of eternal life is announced, in them is displayed what to believe, what to hope, what to love, and what we ought to flee.”44 Clearly, Alcuin seeks not to limit her mind but to expand it. While he does not rule out saints’ lives, certainly, he does not restrict her to reading only about hagiographical models. Like her male counterparts, she is encouraged to read everything she can get a hold of from the Old Testament to patristic texts. Alcuin considers her fully competent. Elsewhere he tells Gisla to “[m]anfully build your eternal home in heaven, that you may have ready blessedness with Christ and his saints.”45 This may be interpreted as a command to overcome or deny her femininity, reasoning that it is better to act as a man. But given the historical context, where increasingly restrictive gender-specific roles are being set up, I would argue that he is simply encouraging her to act assertively and not to settle into the increasingly passive role assigned to women. Most of his letters to Gisla and Rodtrud are hortatory, as are most of his letters in general, regardless of the person’s position or Alcuin’s. But his advice can be revealing. As he advises both women on the importance of chastity, he also emphasizes the importance of strengthening the mind in order to overcome the body: Teach the daughter subject to you in all fear of God, as if you will have to render an account for the souls of every one. For this reason, teach them as sons and daughters with every diligence, so that not only may you deserve to have fleshly solace, but also spiritual joy.46 That Alcuin refers to filios and filias makes clear that chastity is not just for women. And, by the same token, education is not just for men. Elsewhere he exhorts Gisla: “I know that the wisdom of your mind understands all of these things better than I have written them, and that you can fulfill with deeds what I scarcely am able to explain with words.”47 He encourages Gisla and Rodtrud to study and read throughout his letters. But his interest in their education goes beyond mere words. Around the year 800, he sends a book of the Gospel of John and promises to send his commentary on the Gospel, if he should finish, and to dedicate the finished work to them. Upon its completion in 801, he keeps his word, dedicating the work to them and explaining:

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You ought to know that the authority of the gospels deservedly excels all the pages of divine scripture because what the law and the prophets foretold was to come is shown to have returned and been completed in the gospel—and among the writers of gospels, the blessed John is by far the most eminent in profundity of divine mysteries.48 He is not, therefore, sending a text that he believes to be simple or transparent, but one that will prompt deeper contemplation. He wants her to ponder “divinorum profunditate mysteriorum,” not settle for the easier, literal reading. Alcuin’s relationship with Gundrada, Charlemagne’s cousin, reveals his attitude toward female intellect most clearly. No letters dated prior to 800 have survived, but they seem to be already well acquainted by that time. His admiration and fondness are apparent in the earliest letter we have, as the informal salutation suggests. He nicknames her, importantly, Eulalia, “of noble speech,” presumably after St. Eulalia, the popular Spanish martyr revered not only in Spain but throughout Gaul for her reserve, wit, and resolve in the face of great temptations and tortures. Alcuin also refers to Gundrada as “persona,” a term that respects her position and autonomy, and greets her “reverently in Christ.” Weighty in language, syllogism, and abstract concepts such as language theory, his letters to her are longer than most and discuss current affairs of Church and State, including the adoptionist controversy.49 The most important letter to Eulalia frames Alcuin’s treatise on the soul. Its significance in relation to women is that Alcuin draws a sharp separation between the body and the soul and defines the intellect as part of the soul. This first departure is a mark of Alcuin’s originality as well as his more egalitarian view of women. As Serralda observes: Alcuin makes no comparison between the soul of a man and that of a woman. He does not recall the doctrine of Ambrosiaster, according to which the male soul is in the image of God, while the female is in the image of man. He rejected that doctrine. We see this in the fact that he addressed his treatise on the human soul to a lady of the court without distinguishing between the Image engraved on man and that engraved on woman.50

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Although he bases his work heavily on Augustine’s, Alcuin diverges from Augustine and other prominent Fathers in several ways. First, while he regards the soul as the life force of the body, he does not follow Augustine in suggesting that the strength of the soul determines the strength of the body. It is significant that Alcuin makes no reference to the dependence of the body on the soul and simply deals with them as two separate entities because it prevents the essential gendering of the soul implicit in some of Augustine’s work. Serralda also finds this a striking point of departure for Alcuin: The divine image is not received directly in the body. Tertullian and St. Ireneus saw in man the prefiguration of Christ (Romans 8:29) and believed that the model of Genesis required that the human body announce the man-God, which is Christ.Alcuin did not attribute that sense to the passage “God created man in his image.” He eschewed above all the idea that God could have a corporeal appearance. . . . He condemned the anthropomorphist heresy. It is not in the body that the human being is the image of God.51 Another way Alcuin departs from Augustine is in his advocacy of self-love. In De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum 1.26.48, for example, Augustine argues that proper love of the self is realized through or expressed through proper love of God and neighbor. Alcuin, however, maintains that love of God and neighbor is not possible without proper love of self—body and soul: Therefore the soul must love four things: what is above it, what is equal with it, what it is itself, and what is beneath it. Concerning two of these we find a command in Holy Writ—about the love of God and of our neighbor—but there are no specific commands concerning the love of oneself and one’s own body, since these two are held to be implicit in the previous two. For he who loves God or his neighbor perfectly cannot neglect himself. Indeed the greatest blessedness of the soul is to love Him who is the source of its being and to love the souls which share its happiness, and to be of help to them with both bodily comfort and spiritual aid, so that it wishes good things for them and, as far as it can, brings these things about.52

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Alcuin’s valuation of the self has been almost completely overlooked by scholars aside from Serralda, but is nevertheless clear here and becomes central to his sense of proper order. It is also significant that such an assertion could not be made by one who considers the body to be polluted, evil, and revolting. The flesh, therefore, is not to be despised, in Alcuin’s view, but nourished and comforted. Alcuin’s definition of the soul also emphasizes intellect, since the soul is created in the likeness of God, and the power of the soul is determined by its love for God and its ability to control the body. These processes are largely intellectual: Therefore, because the soul is the better part of the person, it befits it to be ruler and as if from the seat of royal eminence to command what, through what means, when, where, and how the body should act and to consider diligently what it should command each limb to do, and what it may allow to each according to the needs of its own nature. And it is fitting for the soul to decide all this through the rational intuition of the mind, lest anything indecent ever be done in the service of its body.53 Women, therefore, are not by nature spiritually weaker than men. Because the soul is rational, and its worth depends on discipline through reason and devotion to God, women have as much of a chance at perfection as men. And thus he exhorts his friend Eulalia to seek the highest level: The beauty and glory of the human soul lie in the search for wisdom; not that wisdom which occupies itself with mundane business, but that rather by which God is worshipped and loved. Strive, most noble maiden, to devote yourself to that quest with all the power of your mind, for in this is life most blessed with all tranquility, in this is the image of that highest trinity completed.54 Here he echoes the most egalitarian part of Augustine’s de Trinitate, omitting all gender distinctions.55 Aiding her quest to understand the soul more fully, Alcuin directs her to read Augustine’s letter to Jerome, which, he tells her, he read long ago in England, in addition to Augustine’s treatises “On the Size of the Soul,” “On the Immortality of the Soul,” “On

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the Two Souls,” and “On the Immortality of the Soul and Its Origin,” which he had not been able to find. He asks her to read them if they are in the royal library and then to send them on to him. He gives this advice, it seems, not as teacher to student, having the final word, but as one scholar to another—true friends with like minds. Finally, after his discussion, we find that she is also a teacher with scholasticis, suggesting that she teaches at the palace school, since she is still a resident there at this point. Again, instead of imposing his interpretation on her, he urges her to look inward for her own understanding: And it must seem somewhat strange to your students that you have wished to consider yourself known more to me than to yourself (but how do you live and flourish in reason if not in the substance of your soul?) when I have rarely seen you with my eyes and have not been able to discern the nature of your soul through them.56 In telling her to look inward, he not only validates her own intuition and her intellect, but also circumvents male authority over female spirituality by questioning his ability to know more about her than she herself would know and, by extension, devalorizes the unquestioned authority of the Church Fathers in determining the nature of the soul. In other words, Alcuin, like Augustine and Jerome before him, can only guess. Exposing this, he makes it clear that speculation and introspection are not male prerogatives, since ultimately the mind, like the soul, has no gender, just as Paul had taught them. If Alcuin’s treatise on the soul was dedicated to Gundrada in answer to her query, it circulated far more widely than that. Indeed, Paul Szarmach points out that the treatise often appears with two other works by Alcuin: De Fide Sanctae Trinitatis, which he wrote for Charlemagne, and Quaestiones ad Fredegisum. The three texts work together, though at different levels and in different ways, Szarmach explains, to explain the trinity: “De Fide approaches a theoretical statement, Quaestiones ad Fredegisum a school text, and De Ratione Animae something like a personal application for a learned or interested audience” (“A Preface” 398). Noting that these three texts also appear with liturgical texts, Matter argues that the group was considered to be an instructional manual of sorts and suggests that “this group of texts may have been a deliberate attempt at reformatting and reshaping the trinitarian mystery, most likely for teaching future Christian

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monks and priests” (“A Carolingian Schoolbook?” 150). She goes on to say that, although the texts are preserved in monastic manuscripts, “[the series] may have been originally intended for the theological education of the nobility. In this way, the collection may be more than just a schoolbook; it may represent a previously unexamined witness to the Carolingian theological enterprise, nothing short of the official Carolingian textbook of theology” (ibid.). As a substantial part of this compendium, Alcuin’s treatise on the soul arguably had a wide-ranging effect on lay perceptions of gender and being. At the very least, Alcuin’s “textbook” may have offered an alternate possibility to less open statements about women’s spirituality. Alcuin’s emphasis on intellect allowed him to transcend traditional views of gender and to promote instead an egalitarian basis for understanding what it is to be human. That is not to say he did not recognize gender distinctions constructed in his own society, but that he did not value them. His reassessment of gender and being is certainly one of his most important contributions, allowing a space within which women could reimagine themselves as fully autonomous subjects before God. Since Alcuin spent the better part of his life in his beloved Northumbria, one might expect that conditions for and attitudes toward women among the Anglo-Saxons, or at least among Northumbrians, would have reflected Alcuin’s own. Unfortunately, it seems that women’s status was already on the decline by the ninth century and would only continue to degrade as power was consolidated under the West Saxon dynasty and royal interests no longer relied on female piety. By the time ecclesiastical reforms were instituted in the tenth century, women had already lost a lot of ground. Rather than producing a vibrant intellectual culture for men and women, as at Charlemagne’s court, reform measures served to widen the gap between men and women, socially as well as intellectually, as the next chapter demonstrates.


Chapter 4

Redressing the Female Subject Women, Transvestite Saints, and the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine Reform Constructions of female subjectivity throughout the Anglo-Saxon period simultaneously reflect and inform a range of attitudes and experiences. But few female-authored texts remain, and rarely does the female voice speak outside of the boundaries established by ecclesiastical models for women. Masculinist constructions of the female subject dominate, therefore, especially in the later Anglo-Saxon period, often representing women stereotypically and artificially in a few carefully delineated domestic, rather than public, roles. Devoid of any connection to active female subjectivity, such representations of women become a mirror, the perfect reflection of the patriarchal order. Since constructions of subjectivity in Anglo-Saxon England, male and female, came to reside largely in Christian ideology, the creation and promotion of an ecclesiastical elite affected subject formation at a fundamental level. Once the reforms began and ritual purity became a major concern for the Church Fathers, as it had been in the reforms instituted under Louis the Pious at the Councils of Aachen in 816 and 817, representations of women served to sexualize the feminine and limit female roles accordingly. The tensions between women and the Church within the everchanging sociohistorical context of Anglo-Saxon England are complex, as Hollis has ably shown. Acknowledging that Anglo-Saxon women once enjoyed a favorable position in society, she argues that there is, nevertheless, a significant reduction in female autonomy as early as the ninth century. Moreover, according to Hollis: 73

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Reform and Resistance The ecclesiastical bases for eventually undermining the position of women were already being laid in the conversion period, and the coming to power of a Norman church hierarchy . . . may have accelerated the effects of the Benedictine Reform movement in England, but does not represent an essential change in direction. (Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church 35)

Thus, the status of women is neither static nor rapidly altered by any particular event. Rather, it spirals steadily downward as the Church gains power, from the mid-eighth century up until the end of the Anglo-Saxon period. Again, this is not to say that pre-Christian Germania represented some sort of golden age for women. Clearly it did not. There is a difference in perceptions of gender and being, however, which is in turn linked to perceptions of body and soul/mind/spirit. Pre-Christian and pre-Roman Germanic peoples seem to have placed some value in women’s capacity as counselors and spiritual advisors. In contrast to Greco-Roman ideology, however, the capability for intellectual and spiritual insight attributed to Germanic women seems to derive from their materiality, not in spite of it or in denial of it, but by virtue of their perceived connection to the earth. Whatever one makes of Tacitus, his observations are corroborated by other evidence attesting to women’s potential for spiritual advancement. Belief in women’s prophetic powers may surface, for example, in a Norse practice, which endured among the Vikings even into the ninth and tenth centuries, that made women the keepers and interpreters of the prophetic runes.1 For Anglo-Saxon England, belief in female powers of divination is suggested by linguistic evidence, as Fell explains: “We have no evidence that the Anglo-Saxons in general thought of women as having prophetic gifts, but the precarious survival of a word like heahrune [chief of those skilled in mysteries—Fell] and the fact that this is used of the Biblical character possessing a spirit of divination, does suggest Anglo-Saxon familiarity with the concept of women who prophesy” (Women in Anglo-Saxon England 32). This passage picks up on Fell’s earlier analysis of the word heahrune as a gloss for Latin pythonissa, where she explains that “[w]hen Aldhelm uses the word Pythonissa he is referring, not to the priestess of Apollo’s oracle at Delphi, but to the woman in Acts who ‘possessed a spirit of divination,’ puellam habentem spiritum pythonem, but was presumably mortal” (ibid. 30). Aldhelm, writ-

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ing in the seventh century, used this charged word, which suggests the possibility in his mind of spiritual advancement for women. The word resonates differently, of course, but the underlying attitudes have not changed significantly for Aldhelm. Fell also points out that, while charms and amulets are found in graves of men as well as women, they have mostly been found in women’s graves. Although the significance of these particular grave goods remains obscure, they may suggest some connection between women and healing. Fell acknowledges that the preponderance of charms and amulets in women’s graves may indicate that women were more superstitious, but she goes on to note that it has been suggested that the rock-crystal ball in particular was used in healing rituals and may have symbolised the woman’s role as guardian of her family’s health. Some wealthy women’s graves contain a considerable number of objects of this kind, and it is not impossible that these represent the graves of women who were thought to have, or claimed to have, healing and prophetic powers, and might properly be considered as burgrunan, “wise women of the community.” (ibid. 34) Although such grave goods date to the pre-Christian period, evidence suggests that pagan practices and women’s involvement in them continued even after the conversion period. Writing in the eleventh century, Ælfric still finds it necessary to caution Christians against seeking the services of witches and sorcerers. In his “Sermo in Laetania Maiore” or “De Auguriis,” Ælfric, citing Paul as his authority, lists witchcraft among the major sins, along with adultery, lust, envy, anger, and so on. He also cites Augustine as an authority and model for speaking out against witchcraft. Ælfric’s admonitions attest to the popularity of witchcraft and soothsaying as well as to the wide range of applications: “It shames us to tell all the scandalous soothsayings that you fools follow through the devil’s lore, either in seeking wives or in traveling, or if someone hopes for something, when they begin something, or something is born to them.”2 As the sermon progresses, the various applications of witchcraft become more detailed. Although, as Fell points out, witches could be male or female, the generic witch Aelfric refers to here is unquestionably female, since he uses the feminine pronoun heo:

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Reform and Resistance The Christian should never consult the foul witch about his health, though she can tell some event through the devil, because it will be harmful and everything that comes from him will be poisonous, and all of his followers shall perish in the end. Some people are so deluded that they bring their offering to an earthbound stone, and also to trees and to springs, as witches teach, and will not understand how stupidly they act or how the dead stone or the dumb tree can help them or give them health when they themselves never stir from the place.3

He later lists specifically female uses of witchcraft and offers even more detail in addressing those: Also some witless women go to crossroads and drag their children through the earth and thus give themselves and their children over to the devil. Some kill their children before they are born or after birth so that they will not be found out, nor will their wicked wantonness be revealed. But their evil is terrible and their death eternal. In that act the child perishes, a hateful heathen, and its dishonorable mother as well, unless she eternally repent. Some of them concoct drinks for suitors or some such evil, so that they might take them to wife. But such disgraceful ones shall go to hell, where they shall suffer eternally in that bloodthirsty fire and in terrifying torments for their witlessness.4 We can see that to the reformers of the late Anglo-Saxon period the practice of witchcraft has become criminal. It is still practiced, nonetheless, and, as much as Ælfric despises and denounces such acts, he also acknowledges their efficacy, though he naturally explains it as deriving from the devil: Now some sorcerers say that witches often tell the truth of an event as it occurs. Now we say truthfully that the invisible devil who flies throughout this world, and sees many things, reveals to those witches what they shall tell people, so that those who seek witchcraft shall be ruined.5 Although women are not the sole practitioners of witchcraft in Anglo-Saxon England, they are, nevertheless, still active in that capacity and, among the populace at least, trusted on some level. Ælfric’s exhorta-


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tions attest to the continuing credibility of women as seers and healers even against the growing authority of the Church. He does not speak against the practice of appropriating charms and pagan folk rituals for Christian purposes or for purposes of Christianizing the folk; as Karen Jolly has so aptly demonstrated, such practices continue throughout the late Anglo-Saxon period and are conducted by the lay clergy. They may not have been enthusiastically embraced by the likes of Ælfric, but they were at least tolerated, no doubt because they were sanitized and controlled by the ecclesiastical elite. The more clandestine practices, especially those conducted by and for women, escaped all possibility of ecclesiastical control and competed against the power of Christian ritual for the devotion of the laity. The demonization of such practices by the reformers, therefore, is a method of control or containment not just of pagan practices, but of that which falls outside of Christian sacred space and, more importantly, what is unintelligible in terms of dominant Christian beliefs—that which is occult, earthly, feminine. Anxiety about dangerous feminine forms and powers comes to be expressed through ritual purification, practices that seek to delimit and control bodies and spaces in order to ensure integrity and purity according to normative ideals.6 Such practices have a long tradition in Western Christianity. Surveying the tradition of ritualistic purity in several early Church councils, Wemple notes that already in the fourth century the Council of Laodicae and Pope Gelasius I had warned that women must be kept apart from the altar area. A synod held between 561 and 605 at Auxerre was even more pointed in its condemnation of women, codifying the inherent impurity of women and insisting “they had to be veiled in the presence of the sacraments and could not touch anything that was consecrated” (Women in Frankish Society 141). In England, such concerns are apparent at least from the time of Bede and probably from the earliest conversion period. In his Ecclesiastical History, Bede records Pope Gregory’s reply to questions posed by Augustine, bishop of Canterbury (died by 609).7 Several questions pertain to marriage/incest laws and offer some insight into Germanic family structure and relational practices. While all of these laws stem from the Mediterranean idea of female impurity, question eight most directly addresses the notion of ritual purity: Should a pregnant woman be baptized? And when the child has been born how much time should elapse before she can enter the church? And after how many days may the child receive the

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Reform and Resistance sacrament of holy baptism so as to forestall its possible death; and after what length of time may her husband have intercourse with her; and is it lawful for her to enter the church if she is in her periods or to receive the sacrament of holy communion? Or may a man who has had intercourse with his wife enter the church before he has washed; or approach the mystery of the holy communion? All these things the ignorant English people need to know.8

Pregnancy, menstruation, intercourse, and even birth in Judaic and Roman Christian terms are all forms of female pollution, and people thus contaminated are not allowed to enter a church or receive baptism or the Eucharist. Gregory’s response shows first of all that the laws regarding ritual purity are not at all clear and uniform. While Augustine apparently believes that pregnancy and childbirth should disallow the rite of baptism and entry into a church, Gregory replies that there is no sin in fruitfulness and that birth ought to be celebrated and God ought to be thanked: “Why indeed should a pregnant woman not be baptized, since the fruitfulness of the body is no sin in the eyes of Almighty God?”9 The Old Testament protocol of purification10 is, Gregory advises, to be taken allegorically. His response goes on point by point in this more liberal vein, demonstrating his policy of tolerance and compromise in the interests of conversion. Although Gregory’s response displays his open-mindedness on this issue, the distinction he draws between sin and depravity reveals his own underlying masculinist views. He sees women’s menstrual flow as an infirmity, for example, characterizes the body as inherently weak and polluted, and locates the female body as the source and sign of that pollution. Nevertheless, he realizes that it would be unwise to impose those views on Anglo-Saxon culture. To do so would be to introduce unnecessary impediments into an already complex process of social as well as spiritual reconfiguration of an entire population. Too much, too soon could result in complete rejection of the new faith. Gregory’s response to Augustine’s question on ceremonial purity, therefore, yields to the difference in early Anglo-Saxon views of women, but nonetheless reiterates and reinforces the idea of women as the source and mark of original sin as he underscores their natural imperfection: A woman ought not to be forbidden to receive the mystery of the Holy Communion at these times. If, out of deep reverence she


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does not venture to receive it, that is praiseworthy; but if she has received it she is not to be judged. It is the part of noble minds to acknowledge their faults to some extent even when no fault exists, for an action is often itself faultless, though it originates in a fault. So when we are hungry it is no sin to eat even though our hunger is the result of the sin of the first man. A woman’s monthly periods are not sinful, because they happen naturally. But nevertheless, because our nature is itself so depraved that it appears to be polluted even without the consent of the will, the depravity arises from sin, and human nature itself recognizes its depravity to be a judgement upon it; so mankind having willfully committed sin must bear the guilt of sin though unwillingly. Let women make up their own minds, and if they do not venture to approach the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord when in their periods, they are to be praised for their right thinking: but when as the result of the habits of a religious life, they are carried away by the love of the same mystery, they are not to be prevented, as we said before.11 Menstruation is not a sin, nor is childbirth; nevertheless, both are marks of original sin inscribed on the female body. Women are not to be prevented from entering a church during those times, presumably because their religious fervor is to be nurtured. However, in Gregory’s view, the women who “are to be praised for their right thinking” [de sua recta consideratione laudandae sunt] are those who restrain themselves and observe rituals of sacramental purity. If Gregory’s Latin letter seems ambivalent, the later Old English translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History adopts a very clear position on women and menstruation. First, in that text, the word used for menstruation is monaðadl, literally “monthly sickness.” Moreover, the translation makes explicit in its prose what is implicit in Gregory’s letter, rendering “Menstrua enim consuetudo mulieribus non aliqua culpa est, videlicet quae naturaliter accedit” [A woman’s monthly periods are not sinful, because they happen naturally] as “Hwæt wiifum heora monaðaðle blodes flownes bið untrymnis” [Now for women the flow of blood during their monthly illness is an infirmity] (Miller, ed. and tr., The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History 1.1, 78.26). Gregory’s allegorical reading of Leviticus speaks to his policy of tolerance in converting the Anglo-Saxons. The fact that the question must be asked at all, however, indicates that the notion of female pollution is a cultural construction, not a universal given. It is also a culturally

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relevant issue—at least from Augustine’s perspective—one that requires careful negotiation at this early stage of conversion. Hollis argues that the initial impetus for the question came not from Augustine, but from the concern of newly converted Anglo-Saxons about maintaining ritual purity in Christian observances: Unless we can manage to construe Augustine’s “All these things the ignorant English people need to know” as implying that he was astonished to encounter a people entirely untrammelled by the faintest notion of ritual contamination, his question appears to illustrate the manner in which the mental grids of ecclesiastic culture attracted to themselves and assimilated existing indigenous taboos. (Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church 24) I am not as convinced as Hollis seems to be that the concept of female impurity is universal, though ritual purity might be. The Penitentials of Theodore also take for granted the pollutedness of the female body, restricting (without Gregory’s spirit of diplomatic compromise) women from receiving the Eucharist during menstruation and after giving birth.12 The fact that Theodore feels compelled to impose a penalty for violation of purity laws suggests that the grids of ecclesiastical culture found little in the way of indigenous taboos to assimilate. While virginity and chastity in marriage were important in Germanic societies to protect the integrity of the male line, the female body seems to have been considered not a source of pollution, but a source of life. And for a time, thanks to Gregory, that attitude would be sanctioned, or at least tolerated, by the Roman Church in the interests of conversion. Clearly, contradictory attitudes toward women coexisted during the early Anglo-Saxon period, stemming from the pagan Germanic tradition, in which women were revered to some degree as counselors and were able to hold some positions of power, and the Christian tradition, which naturalized the inferiority of women and categorically barred them from any potentially powerful position. As in any conversionary period, old ideas were tolerated for the sake of promoting new ones. By the time of the monastic reforms of the tenth century, however, Anglo-Saxon culture had assimilated Christian ideology, and the Church, no longer bound by conversionary tolerance, was able to impose stricter demands on the culture. As Dagmar Beate Schneider observes, “The old [AngloSaxon and Frankish] double monastery with its commanding and holy


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abbesses who had preached to, taught, ruled and advised the men of their time; [sic] had no place in a genuinely Christian and mediaeval world” (“Anglo-Saxon Women in the Religious Life” 37). The progression is not that simple; nor is it absolute. Women continue to assume powerful positions and make themselves heard even into the Norman period, but the ways in which their voices and figures are construed and represented require careful examination. While some scholars maintain that the reform movement in late Anglo-Saxon England proved devastating to women’s status, others have convincingly demonstrated the continuing power of a number of women and support for the reform movement by those powerful women.13 The anointing of the queen and the conferral of queenly authority over all nuns demonstrate ways in which reform acts empowered women. As Pauline Stafford argues, the reform movement had the potential to raise the status of nuns, if not all women, as it elevated the status of monastics over the laity regardless of gender. She acknowledges, however, that possibilities for gender equality existed more in ideal terms than in practice (“Queens, Nunneries and Reforming Churchmen” 3–35). Dorothy Patricia Wallace, in her analysis of Queen Emma, cites the second English ordo as evidence for the queen’s active and public role as guardian of female monasteries and agent of conversion. Wallace notes: The prayer over the king’s ring demands that he unite his subjects in one Christian faith. In contrast with the ordo’s positioning the king as a central authority above the Christian body, the prayer over the queen’s ring demands that she go beyond the populace of the converted to invite the “barbarae gentes” into “agnitionem ueritatis.” She is charged with going into another realm to lead non-Christians into an understanding of God, specifically, a “knowledge of truth.” (“Religious Women and their Men” 20–21) The queen’s role does seem to complement the king’s in this instance, and perhaps even casts her as more active: while he is expected to maintain the status quo, the queen is encouraged to seek converts, set on a mission, as it were. Stafford, too, recognizes the potential for power inherent in the second ordo. She also, however, notes the disjunction between ideology and practice.14 I believe that while it articulates more certainly the queen’s

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role in leadership, the ritual of the ordo ultimately compromises female autonomy. First of all, as Hollis points out, the ordo institutes the universal and absolute segregation of male and female ecclesiastics. Schneider, too, notes the limitations of similar powers conferred on the queen in the Regularis Concordia: Although the Regularis Concordia ascribed to queen Aelfthryth the care for all the female communities of the realm, and proves therefore that a queen still had certain religious duties, these were definitely of a Christian nature and modelled on normative Christian writings. In contrast to the early Christian period in Anglo-Saxon England, the queen now was formally but abstractly responsible for all female communities, and was the patron of all nuns, but it was the king who was the patron of the monks. (“Anglo-Saxon Women in the Religious Life” 35, author’s emphasis) The second ordo was produced during the period of Viking settlements in England, and quite probably marks Cnut’s accession to the throne after the Danish conquest in 1017. Stafford notes the likelihood of the second ordo arising out of immediate political circumstances and argues for the date of 1017. More importantly, she cites evidence of ethnic anxiety throughout the ordo.15 Clearly, the revised ordo represents a calculated response to the conquest of Cnut and seeks to rein him in quite literally. But what does such anxiety mean for women, and why under those circumstances would the queen be commissioned to extend beyond the boundaries of the English realm to foreigners? Perhaps the authors of the ordo were trying to utilize women’s perceived role in Germanic societies as purveyors of piety in an attempt to first Christianize and then anglicize that population. Although it is possible that women were still viewed that way in late Anglo-Saxon culture, I am somewhat more cynical. It seems more likely to me that the prayer over the ring does not demonstrate continuing recognition of the queen as an active spiritual leader among the Anglo-Saxons, but rather serves as part of a strategy for converting the Danes, who would still have associated women with the sacred, following Germanic tradition. In this scenario, the Benedictine reformers of the tenth century paradoxically erase women’s active spiritual role in Anglo-Saxon culture generally (by segregating men and women of the Church) at the same time that they exploit the traditional Germanic as-


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sociation of women with spirituality in order to bring the settling heathen Danes into the Christian English fold. The revised ordination rites provide one late example of an older dynamic. In the face of increasing secularization throughout England after the early Viking raids and Danish infiltration, ecclesiastical dominance had been compromised. The Benedictine reform was therefore initiated in an effort to reestablish the Church as a central power, if not the central power, in England. In order to regain control on a “national” level, the Church instituted measures of unification and conformity, moving from an age of exegesis to one of explication and exhortation. Among other things, the movement was characterized by the implementation in the late tenth and eleventh centuries of a universal monastic rule, the Regularis Concordia; the standardization of Old English at Winchester under Æthelwold; and the refoundation of double monasteries as male communities. All of these measures directly or indirectly restricted female power: the universal rule prevented women from changing standards within their orders; the standardization of the English language created an elite register, which may not have been available to female students, thereby compromising their credibility by making them appear less learned even in the vernacular; and the refoundation of double monasteries as male communities removed women from the upper ranks of ecclesiastical power completely—female communities were still ruled by abbesses, of course, but under the guidance of bishop and priest. The reform brand of literacy amplifies the effects of other reform measures on women. In the later Anglo-Saxon period, as double monasteries devastated by Viking invasions were being refounded as single, usually male, monasteries, and women were no longer allowed to perform any spiritual office in the Church, even in the confines of their respective houses, it was no longer necessary for female abbesses to attend synods as the abbots did or for female monastics to undergo rigorous training in Latin and the scriptures, which remained an obligation (or privilege) for male monastics. Certainly, female monastics continued to sing the hours and masses, but the kind of intellectual interchange that existed among Aldhelm, Boniface, and Alcuin and their female students and correspondents seems not to have continued into the late Anglo-Saxon period. Thus, women were prevented from entering into that elite circle of literati and had to rely entirely upon their male guardians for scriptural interpretation, spiritual guidance, and supervision. They had no opportunity or ability

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to question these things. There were, of course, exceptions, but for the most part monastic women were demoted to the level of the laity and subject to complete control by the male clergy. The linguistic monopoly of the Church not only affected the social and political position of women, but also excluded them from the position of speaking subject as described in Althusser’s model.16 Because they were outside of the privileged realm of auctoritas, women were reduced to spoken subject, interpellated through the text by means of identification with female subjects of speech constructed without benefit of female experience or female bodies. These models offer women little in the way of autonomy. Fell is right to point out that the actualization of these models is questionable, since some exceptional women of the late Anglo-Saxon period seem to transcend or even defy them. It must also be noted, however, that those exceptional women had unusual opportunities for advancement. Moreover, while the Church was able to introduce restrictive policies toward women, widespread social change is never effected immediately but only gradually, as artificial models become assimilated and naturalized. As Stacy Klein has shown, queenship in Anglo-Saxon England is culturally complex and therefore remains substantial and significant in the cultural imagination. Nevertheless, Æthelflæd of Mercia, Ælfgifu, Emma, and other powerful women of the tenth and eleventh centuries may be seen as anomalous remnants of the earlier condition of women rather than evidence for continuing positive attitudes toward women in the late Anglo-Saxon period. In later Anglo-Saxon England, the gendering of Christian subjects is reiterated in reform texts that objectify and marginalize the female as ancillary or supplementary. Lived female subject positions could not be expressed within the parameters of the increasingly ecclesiastical culture of mid to late Anglo-Saxon England because they were simply not culturally intelligible, or there was no longer any mechanism in place to facilitate the materialization of autonomous female subjects as strong women in their own right. That is not to say strong women did not exist, but that they were not recognized in the cultural media, knowledges, and apparatuses available to them. Weighing the evidence of inscriptions, Elizabeth Okasha finds that women are memorialized far less and also are far less likely to manufacture, commission, or inscribe articles. Considering the ways in which cultural memory works through inscription, and vice versa, she concludes:


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The picture of Anglo-Saxon England that emerges from the inscriptions is of a male world where women played a rôle, certainly, but a rôle defined and delimited by men. Is this because that was what Anglo-Saxon England was like? This may of course be so. Another possibility is that it was, at least in part, due to the fact that the written record was largely controlled by men. Certainly we know that literacy was enjoyed by both men and women in Anglo-Saxon England but the art of writing seems to have been considerably more common amongst men. Almost all the names of authors known to us from Anglo-Saxon England were male, most of the surviving letters were written by men, the few scribes known to us by name were all male, the moneyers of coins were exclusively men. (“Anglo-Saxon Women” 86–87) Her analysis raises important questions relating to cultural intelligibility: Who controls the record? Who is recognized and who not? Who is deleted from the record simply by never being inscribed in it? Never erased because never inscribed in the first place. Okasha concludes that, while the evidence points neither to a golden age for women nor to pervasive victimization or oppression of women, “the world which is suggested is one where male interests were paramount and where women and their rôles were drawn and delimited through male eyes and from a male perspective” (ibid. 87). Gender remains an issue in the Church during the reform period, as the appearance of two vernacular transvestite saints’ lives in the context of tenth-century England attests. Cross-dressing seems a subversive and natural development of early Church history, since the early Church, consonant with its Mediterranean roots, defined the ideal spiritual being as male and yet depended heavily upon female participation for promotion of the faith. The cultural circumstances almost insisted that women transgress normative gender boundaries in order to participate in the new faith. In Carnal Knowing, Miles defines the early Christian self as masculine and, drawing from various writings of the Fathers, shows how women, in order to define themselves as subjects within Christian discourse, had to “become male.” 17 Miles notes that, according to Palladius, “women overachievers were ‘more like men than nature would allow’ ” (Carnal Knowing 55). Gregory of Nyssa describes St. Macrina in like manner: “It was a woman who was the subject of our discourse, if indeed you

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can say ‘a woman,’ for I do not know if it is appropriate to call her by a name taken from nature when she surpassed that nature” (cited in Miles, Carnal Knowing 55). The lives of transvestite saints especially lend themselves to this notion. Indeed, the translation of these texts into Old English is prompted by the question of gender and selfhood in the first place. As Allen Frantzen remarks, Switches of gender identity are opportunities to explore the meaning of gender itself as a performative category that interrogates the natural positions of male and female that are opposed centers of gender anxiety. I look for this middle ground in Old English figures who seem to define it, in “manly women,” a name for transvestite saints, women whose gender identities must change before they can achieve the sanctity they desire. (“When Women Aren’t Enough” 460) The promotion of Christian ideology, which in its antifeminist mode paradoxically seems to require women to become male in order to find salvation, is not only at odds with its own patriarchal structure, but lends itself dangerously to the sociopolitical framework of Germanic culture, which allows women to assume typically male roles in certain circumstances. Reformers in Anglo-Saxon England, therefore, were forced to redefine gender expectations in order to maintain patriarchal order, ecclesiastically and socially. To the reformers, the figures of Euphrosyne and Eugenia no doubt caused “gender trouble” because they successfully assumed male roles. Therefore, the Old English accounts, while not as harshly antifeminist as the earlier legends, do not dwell on the notion of “becoming male.” Instead, these texts, most likely translated for lay nobility of both genders, literally and figuratively redress the male imposters and reaffirm a patriarchal hierarchy of gender in Church and “State.” The Life of St. Euphrosyne preserves the transvestite saint motif in its simplest form, according to John Anson, in a tripartite plot structure: flight from the world, disguise and seclusion, and finally discovery and recognition. The plot remains uncomplicated, and the saint is allowed to live undisturbed as a eunuch until her death, at which time she reveals her true identity to her father, Paphnutius. This sequence of events seems to preserve the early Christian view that women must symbolically over-


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come their female nature to achieve salvation. However, a closer look at the text reveals that Euphrosyne’s gender switch is merely performative. She adopts male dress and a male lifestyle within the monastery, and is thus seen as Smaragdus by the world. Indeed, the masculine pronoun is used in reference to her during encounters with the abbot and the other monks. But her feminine nature does show through, as the monks’ scandalous attraction to her suggests. Because her presence is perceived to be dangerous for the weak monks who find her attractive, she is isolated from them in her own cell. For Stafford, this episode hints at latent anxiety of homoerotic desire and pedophilia (“Gender” 11). Such anxieties appear indirectly in the Regularis Concordia as well, so it is a likely subtext. Frantzen, too, notes the potential for homoerotic suggestion in the attraction of the monks to the beautiful “eunuch” Smaragdus. For Frantzen, though, the notion is introduced so that it may be addressed, and the problem resolved or at the very least controlled. The monks know their desire to be shameful and unacceptable. The text always safely reaffirms the heterosexuality of the monks, Frantzen observes, even if they themselves do not realize it. This scene also has within it a deeper lesson. Even if their desire were not acceptable, Frantzen points out that these monks demonstrate a proper response to illicit desire and serve therefore as a model: “They not only monitor their desire but understand that it endangers their vows of celibacy, which constitute their real manhood, their virginity in Christ. They recognize and police their own deviance” (“Kiss” 89). Anxieties about sexuality connect symptomatically to a larger anxiety about the feminine as the text firmly asserts the inherent seductiveness of the female body, however craftily disguised, and ultimately reduces even this most holy and spiritual woman to her inescapable corporeality. The legend thus seeks to control desire and sexuality by controlling the wayward female body. It affirms, therefore, the wisdom not only of segregation of the sexes but also strict active enclosure of female monastics, both of which are promoted by the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon reformers as well as their Anianian forebears.18 While Euphrosyne convincingly masquerades as a man, it is just that—a masquerade. When she is with her father, even as Smaragdus, the female pronoun is used, indicating that, though she may fool the world, she remains essentially female. As the moment of her death approaches, Euphrosyne confides as much in her father: “God almighty has well directed my wretched life and fulfilled my desire so that I might

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end the course of my life manfully.”19 Agapitus, her counselor, having overheard her disclosure, falls on her body, saying: “Euphrosyne, bride of Christ and issue of holy persons, be not forgetful of your fellow servants and of this monastery, but pray to the Lord for us that he may cause us to come manfully to the safe harbor and to partake with him and his holy ones.”20 The irony of the situation suggested by the use of werlice is articulated fully by the monks: “Then when they found that she was a woman, they rejoiced in God, the one who in the womanly and frail nature works such wonders.”21 In marveling at her great feat, her life as a man, the monks reveal the underlying biases of the legend. To them and to the narrator, it is miraculous indeed that a woman could be so righteous. The lesson is clear: if she could do it, so should they. In a final flourish typical of accounts of female virility or heroism, the legend chastises men who are less so. But this story is not really about Euphrosyne, even if it is named for her. As Szarmach points out, “this life is, at its root, a story about father(s) and daughter” (“St. Euphrosyne: Holy Transvestite” 355). Szarmach traces carefully the story of her birth or, as he calls it, her “pre-history.” His meticulous reading demonstrates a familial shift from the typical nuclear family model of father–mother–child to father–father–child. Troubled by childlessness, both mother and father seek divine assistance in different ways. As Szarmach explains, the mother, who is less concerned with wealth than her husband, gives alms generously and prays to God for a child. Her husband, though virtuous, is less generous and also perhaps not as sure in his devotion, as he seeks an intercessor. The father approaches the abbot for assistance in appealing to God. Interestingly, Szarmach notes, “The text is quite specific that the prayers of father and abbot are successful (the mother is not mentioned at all here) and felicitously ambiguous as to whose daughter it might be. The vagaries of Old English pronoun reference allow the reading that Euphrosyne is daughter to father and abbot, a biological impossibility of course but (eventually) a thematic reality for these ‘father figures’ ” (ibid. 355). The mother disappears entirely from the story and the values she represented (devotion, generosity) are, in Szarmach’s view, “transferred to Euphrosyne, in part, and to the abbot” (ibid. 356). The mystical connection between Paphnutius, Euphrosyne, and the abbot becomes more convoluted as the story advances. The story begins and ends not with Euphrosyne, but with Paphnutius. Her role, therefore, is


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not primary, but secondary, as she lives for the express purpose of forming a link between men. In the secular world she would have effected this link in marriage. Although she has escaped such a fate and enters into the monastic world, she maintains her place as a woman by forming the link between two men: her father and the abbot. Upon entering the monastery, she promises the abbot the rest of her wealth later, if he will let her stay. It is not until her disclosure to her father that she is able to complete the transaction, because it is his money, presumably her dowry, which she technically has forfeited by breaking the secular marriage promise. Not only does Paphnutius make good on her promise to the abbot, completing her “marriage promise,” but because of her exemplary life Paphnutius gives up his wealth and joins the monastery. Thus, she joins Paphnutius to the male community and, on a spiritual level, to her true bridegroom, Christ. Although the Life of St. Euphrosyne contains the potential for subversion inherent in the legend, it promotes reform ideals instead. The story demonstrates the superiority of monasticism to lay devotion, in that the abbot’s intercessional prayers succeed where the mother’s private prayer coupled with active almsgiving do not. Moreover, the monastic life achieves what secular marriage cannot—the mother may personify lay piety, but she has little effect on her husband. The aim of the story seems to be the conversion of Paphnutius from lay to monastic. As Szarmach notes, Paphnutius’s reunion with his daughter parallels Euphrosyne’s tripartite movement away from home to the monastery. The parallel currents effectively move in the same direction, even if their purposes are ostensibly opposed. Paphnutius’s search for his lost daughter symbolizes his subconscious desire for God. He has lost his treasure, his hope, although he misunderstands at the time what that means. In lay terms, she was the promise of future progeny and, more importantly, the continuation of his wealth—the primary reason he wanted desperately to have a child in the first place. Spiritual progeny and wealth mean nothing to him at this time. The denouement of the story, though, reveals that larger purpose. His revelation, which comes finally with the grand revelation of Euphrosyne’s identity, is a long process of integration into the monastery modeled on secular practices of courtship and marriage and is finalized after her death with the transference of wealth to the monastery and Paphnutius’s entry into the monastic life. Female piety, which is ostensibly the subject of celebration, falls by the wayside in service of male monasticism. Although

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female piety pervades this telling of the legend, therefore, it is only effective, it seems, within the monastic space under the oversight of abbot. Finally, the ideal of segregated monasticism is clearly promoted with the isolation of Smaragdus/Euphrosyne, demonstrating that women have the potential to lead holy lives and may live “manfully” in spirit as long as they keep their dangerous bodies within bounds and under wraps. Eugenia’s story is considerably more complicated than Euphrosyne’s, even in Ælfric’s abbreviated version, and arguably more restrictive for women in its message. Ælfric’s text reveals a woman temporarily changed to a man, retaining from the Latin source the image of Eugenia “changed from a wolf to a sheep.”22 This is, as Gopa Roy points out, ambiguous, since it is not clear whether this metaphor refers to her newfound maleness or her conversion to Christianity. I would suggest that it is both, and that both the female and the pagan are presented as being weak, evil, and false in the text. In any case, “Eugenia then lived in the monastery with a manly mind, though she was a girl.”23 She is successful and even becomes an abbot and healer, until she is falsely accused of rape by a thwarted admirer, Melanthia. At the trial, over which her father presides, Eugenia proves her innocence by baring her breasts, revealing her “true” gender. She founds a female community and lives out her days converting other women until she is finally martyred. For Ælfric, Eugenia’s early achievements as abbot and healer are not as productive as those in the second half of the Life where she lives according to the rules for her gender. Ælfric’s version balances on the recognition scene. Her life as a monk is perhaps temporarily necessary and sanctioned by God, but it is not appropriate for a longer period of time. The Melanthia incident seems to prove that women do not belong in the public realm. This event leads to her disclosure, wherein familial, social, and ecclesiastical resolution is found. The family reunion becomes a family conversion, which then extends to a more general proliferation of the faith. As Ælfric tells us: “a great many of the people turned to the worship of Christ and made the Christian community stronger. Then the abandoned churches became renewed in the eighth year, and the faith increased.”24 Her father, who had been the magistrate, also abandons the worldly life and becomes bishop. Upon his martyrdom, as Eugenia reveals in a vision to her mother, he is seated among the Patriarchs in heaven, higher than Eugenia herself, who sits among the virgins. The young Eugenia seems to enjoy an unusual degree of autonomy. She is well educated in both Greek and Latin and well versed in philosophy before she encounters Christian texts. Paul’s writing on virginity


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piques her interest to such a degree that she gets permission from her father to leave his home and seek out Christians so that she might learn more. Once she encounters a group of devout Christians in full-blown psalmody, she decides to join them and convinces her companions, two eunuchs, to cut off her hair and help her disguise herself as a man. They enter the monastery, never to return home. The story is potentially subversive: Eugenia refuses marriage, switches gender, and chooses her own path in life. As Catherine Cubitt observes, however, “It is most unlikely that [Ælfric] intended that this saint should inspire her Anglo-Saxon sisters to imitation since he explicitly condemned the practice of cross-dressing in his pastoral letters” (“Virginity and Misogyny” 15). Indeed, Eugenia’s agency is eclipsed throughout by the underpinnings of male authority and privilege. Although the story is ostensibly about the virgin martyr, the framing and denouement suggest otherwise. The very first sentence sums up her life and virtue for its audience: “Let any who will hear about the holy virgin Eugenia, daughter of Philip, how she prospered wonderfully through virginity and overcame this Middle Earth through martyrdom.”25 Although the Latin source does not introduce Eugenia until the second chapter, Ælfric maps her identity clearly from the start: she is her father’s daughter first and foremost, a virgin second, and a martyr last. He then moves to an account of Philip’s career, which brings him and his family to Alexandria. Thus, the reader learns of Eugenia’s noble background in derivative fashion. That is, she becomes secondary as her father takes center stage. Even her remarkably transgressive acts of leaving home and entering a male monastery are defused of their subversive potential as Ælfric tells us first that she leaves home with her father’s blessing and second that her identity is revealed to the bishop in a vision before she asks to enter the monastery: On that same day came a bishop, called Helenus, of holy life, with a great following, singing in unison, Uia iustorum recta facta est. et iter sanctorum preparata est. That is, “the way of righteousness is made straight, and the road of the saints is prepared.” This bishop worked many miracles through God, and it was revealed to him in a dream about this matter, and the virgin’s mind was completely made known to him.26 In the Latin version, the bishop also learns of Eugenia’s gender through a vision, but not until after she has been admitted. Ælfric seems to want

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to guarantee the perception of Eugenia following a preordained path rather than setting her own destiny. Ælfric’s narrator also explains why her gender transgression will be tolerated, relating that the bishop then “took her apart and told her knowingly that she was no man, and to what family she belonged, and that she greatly pleased the heavenly king through her virginity, which she had chosen.”27 Her identity, therefore, rests completely in her choice to remain a virgin. Her transgression is sanctioned by God in order to protect her virginity until the time comes for her to die a martyr. What seems earlier to be radical defiance is skillfully crafted into Christian destiny and obedience. The soon-to-be Saint Eugenia follows the road prepared for her. The suggestion of sexual transgression in Melanthia’s overtures to Eugenius/Eugenia can also be explained in terms of reform ideals. If the scene helps to blur gender identity by hinting at homoerotic attraction between women, such a reading serves to strengthen suspicions about the female body already pervading the text. It is this scene that ultimately prompts Eugenia’s disclosure and redirects her devotional practices in a more appropriate fashion. The incident with Melanthia constituted the failure of the “experiment.” Melanthia, moreover, may be read as a figure for the feminine in direct opposition to reform ideals. As Stafford observes, [Melanthia] tempted the transvestite monk, Eugenia, not just with her body but with marriage as a route to personal possessions and land. “Woman’s” sexual body, land and non-communal possessions were combined as the opposite of the monastic ideal which Eugenia had sought. “Woman” was impure body, but she was also private, or rather familial, property, and both were transferred through marriage. She was thus not only quintessentially feminine but, in tenth-century reforming terms, quintessentially lay. (“Queens, Nunneries” 9) Thus, Eugenia’s denunciation of the wealthy widow, together with Eugenia’s revelation and the widow’s demise, signals a metaphorical movement from lay to monastic, mixed community to segregated, worldly to spiritual, active to contemplative. This scene, too, performs for its (probably) lay audience a dramatic renunciation of the autonomous woman as Eugenia exposes her true physical gender and Melanthia is literally vaporized. Both women, the


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text suggests, pushed the boundaries in ways that allowed the dangers of femininity to surface. Though Eugenia restrained her own feminine nature, she ultimately could not conceal its seductive powers, particularly in her public role. And of course Melanthia’s actions demonstrate her weak resolve and the reason women ought not to be left to their own devices. She is an example of what an independent woman of means might do. At this moment of recognition, both women are brought to justice for their transgressions. Melanthia is no longer allowed to exist in this social order, paying the ultimate price for her sinister transgression. Though Eugenia is not punished for her noble transgression, she is no longer allowed the free rein she once had in her position of (male) authority; her virtue and her conviction are redirected in a more appropriate fashion and lifestyle. At this juncture the text makes clear that transvestism is not the ideal course for Eugenia. Certainly, aside from being the mode of her escape from secular life and the bonds of marriage, it also proves her conviction. But true fruitfulness comes when she assumes her proper place, as a leader of women, not men, in constant conference with or under the constant supervision of the bishop. Her dress is not simply a superficial plot device; it dramatizes the various constructions of Eugenia as male and female subject. As a male, Eugenia is active, but as a female she resumes the appropriate passive stance.28 The stages of her growth as a female Christian subject are indicated by her speeches in Ælfric’s version. Although she speaks throughout the Latin versions, Ælfric lets her speak only four times: her declaration of faith to Helenus, her rejection of Melanthia’s advances, the disclosure of her true identity, and in a vision to her mother in affirmation of heavenly bliss. As a man she speaks three times, but as a woman only once and then only in a vision. Ælfric deprives her of active voice as a woman in life, even though she has clearly proven her capability, but allows her to speak once she is no longer bound within her female self. Then, and only then, has she achieved what Ælfric might have called true maleness, as he defines it in his first homily for mid-Lent Sunday: Now everyone who wants to sit at God’s feast and enjoy that spiritual teaching ought to tread on that grass and sit; that is, he ought to control fleshly lusts and continually subject his body to the service of God. There were counted at that feast five thousand men, because those men who belonged to that spiritual feast had to

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Reform and Resistance be manfully made, just as the apostle said. He said, be vigilant and stand on faith and act manfully and be refreshed. Though if a woman is manfully made, and strong to God’s will, she may be counted among those men who sit at God’s table.29

Szarmach maintains that Ælfric’s text has as its center the egalitarian statement expressed in Galatians 3:28, even though Ælfric cut Eugenia’s recitation of that verse out of her disclosement speech. Szarmach suggests that Ælfric had to restrict himself to the more concrete theme of virginity for the purposes of his text; in addition, “[i]ncomplete or incorrect explication of Galatians 3:28 could inspire irregular Christian conduct or observance” (“Ælfric’s Women Saints” 154). Indeed, women of high social status might well have taken such a speech—uttered by a manly heroine and charged with egalitarian principles—literally and become more aggressive socially and politically. Women of the nobility were already strong supporters of the reform movement politically and financially, as historians have shown.30 Moreover, Stafford argues that “[t]he reforms created, as they were stimulated by, enthusiasm for the religious life in both women and men” (“Queens, Nunneries, and Reforming Churchmen” 22). Stafford also points out that reform increased the power of the queen over female communities, “to which reform offered increased opportunity and incentive for autonomy” (ibid. 25). Women had much to gain by supporting the reform movement, though the terms of engagement were not always clear and straightforward. While the Church certainly would not have wanted to discourage women’s support, the reformers, given their agenda, probably would not have wanted so many powerful women to fancy themselves equal to men. Thus, they had to define women’s roles carefully. As much as ecclesiastics wanted to present ideals in simple fashion, the realities of reform were different. As Stafford reminds us, “[i]deal gender polarities, like so many other binary distinctions, are normative rather than simply descriptive. The neat and comforting order of God in His heaven, men and women in their places, and all right with the world, is contested and unstable, constantly undermined, including in this time and place the reformers themselves” (ibid. 9). Because the notion of women “becoming male” was deeply rooted in the writings of Church Fathers such as Jerome and Gregory and seems embedded in Christian thought, Ælfric, writing in the context of reform and for the purposes of reform, would surely have felt the need to take measures to counter such potentially subversive subtexts.


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Galatians 3:28, particularly as it takes shape in Ælfric’s Latin source, does seem to encourage women to follow Eugenia’s model quite literally and is therefore potentially dangerous in late Anglo-Saxon England, where male and female ecclesiastics were supposed to follow strict rules of segregation, and where secular women are increasingly excluded from powerful roles that have come to be defined as masculine. Interestingly, however, Galatians 3:28 seems not to offer a core of egalitarianism in the Latin source, since Eugenia herself uses the famous passage to articulate the notion of female infirmity rather than equality: For so great is the power of his name that even women standing in fear of him obtain virile dignity. And in Him by faith there can be found no distinction of sex, since blessed Paul the Apostle, teacher of all Christians, says that in the Lord there is no distinction of male and female, for we are all one in Christ (Galatians 3:28). Therefore, I have adopted his law with a burning spirit, and out of the confidence that I had in Christ I willed not to be a woman, but preserving immaculate my virginity with the whole exertion of my soul, I have played the man steadfastly in Christ, for I did not take on a pretense empty of honor, as if I were a man pretending to be a woman, but, as a woman acting in a virile way, I have played the man, bravely embracing my virginity, which is in Christ.31 Eugenia’s religious fervor seems not to be recognizable in female form, so she must adapt. Interestingly, she uses the egalitarian premise of Galatians 3:28 to denounce her femininity. The only good woman is a man, in other words. In this context, Galatians 3:28 describes not a paradisiacal afterlife of either androgynous or sexless beings, but a paradise of men, much like the one Jerome envisions in his commentary on Ephesians: As long as woman devotes herself to birth and children, she is different from man as body is from soul. But when she wishes to devote herself to Christ more than to the world, then she will cease to be a woman and will be called man, because we all desire “to meet into a perfect man.” (Tr. Roy 12) Jerome’s view demonstrates the fluidity of gender identity implicit in this particular ideology and offers equal opportunity to all women who denounce their worldly ties and maximize their intellectual and spiritual

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capacities. It is not about transcending gender or raising the status of women, nor does this view offer any possibility for redefining gender relations; rather, it reaffirms the superiority of the male form and the inferiority, even infirmity, of the female. The promise for certain women offered here comes at the expense of women more commonly. While they do not denounce the female body as vociferously as did their Latin sources, the Old English versions of Euphrosyne and Eugenia neither liberate nor empower women. Rather, recognizing the rich potential for subversion inherent in the device of cross-dressing, the Old English versions expose the male imposter in more explicit ways than the earlier accounts do and literally and metaphorically redress these and all women who would be male, raising the possibility of transcending gender limitations or collapsing gender difference only effectively to dismiss it. As Jonathan Walker concludes: “As liberatory as they may at first seem, the transvestite characteristics of the subgenre function as a discursive system through which hagiographers fortify distinct and hierarchical gender categories, an act which helps to tether the spiritual and social prospects of historical women to a degraded, female bodily form” (“The Transtextuality of Transvestite Sainthood” 77–78). This tactic applauds and encourages female monastics while at the same time keeping them (or putting them back) in their place until perhaps, untainted by their bodies, their manly tendencies could be recognized and rewarded in a higher place. The control of these potentially transgressive bodies addresses the anxieties of sexuality and the female body expressed in Bede’s account of the conversion period, most notably in the correspondence between Augustine of Canterbury and Gregory the Great, but also in Bede’s own account of early female piety in England. These so-called transvestite saints complete a logical progression from the masculinist biases that formed the basis for orthodoxy in the developing Anglo-Saxon Church. Imported into their reformist Anglo-Saxon context, these texts do not encourage women to become more “male.” Rather, while applauding the ambitions of these pious women, the texts uncover the error, re-dress the women properly as women, and in so doing redress the affront to proper social order.

Chapter 5

Resounding Silences Mary and Eve in Anglo-Saxon Reform Literature The dichotomy of body and soul materialized in the female and the male form, respectively, is expressed most fully through the models of Eve and Mary. Although they seem to stand at opposite ends of the spectrum of possibilities for female subject formation, as constructed in Anglo-Saxon reform texts, they are really two sides of the same coin. That is, they reinforce the same restrictive attitudes toward women and justify thereby the subjection of women to men. Whereas Ælfric’s Mary works to model passivity and reinforces the notion of women as ancillary or supplementary subjects, the figure of Eve in Genesis B demonstrates what happens when women do have a voice and men listen. As the poem progresses, Eve exemplifies the movement from abject being, disregarding God’s law and her place, to supplementary subject—that is, subject to God through man, fully accepting of her subservient position. The Virgin Mary is probably the most influential hagiographical model adopted for reform objectives in Anglo-Saxon England. It is certainly no accident that the Benedictine reform movement coincides with the blossoming cult of the Virgin Mary in England. Mary is put forth as an exemplum of virginity, presumably for both genders, but especially for all women to emulate, though of course they can never achieve that level of purity. Hollis demonstrates that, celebrated as the celestial queen, Mary also provides a model for what a proper earthly queen should be—meek, passive, and obedient: not a ruler, but an intercessor. Thus, the apparent centrality of Mary reflects and reinforces the increasing marginalization of women by deflating the active power of queenship, the highest attainable position for women in Anglo-Saxon society. All 97

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women, however powerful, are to follow Mary’s example and subordinate themselves dutifully to their menfolk. That the figure of Mary could carry so much weight in the reform movement attests to its richness. Orthodox depictions, drawing from the Song of Songs, focus mainly on Mary’s body, specifically her perfect, perpetually sealed womb. She is the hortus conclusus (the enclosed garden), the golden gate through which only Christ could pass, and, by extension, the fortress and the Church. Her role in life was to bear Christ and to provide a model of chastity. Nothing else. Her powers as intercessor emanate from her womb. Mary is not simply a model of behavior; her perfectly enclosed body is a symbol of the ideal Christian order onto which social mores and hierarchies are mapped. For members of the early Church, struggling against social and political uncertainty, the figure of Mary emerges as an icon of stability, as the writings of Ambrose demonstrate. In Brown’s assessment: In defending the perpetual virginity of Mary . . . Ambrose knew that he was not only elevating the mother of the Lord: he found an apposite Te Deum with which to celebrate twenty years of tense concern for boundaries, for the dangers of admixture, and for the absolute and perpetual nature of the antithesis between the Catholic Church and the formless, disruptive confusion of the saeculum. In these years, it was always with the doors of the church in mind that Ambrose ended his evocations of the perpetual virginity of Mary. The closed human person of Mary made concrete to his hearers the intangible screen that ringed the basilicas of the Catholic Church: “He of Whom it was said, in relation to the Church, for he has strengthened the bars of thy gates, how could He not have strengthened the bars of His own gate [i.e., the Virgin’s womb]?” (The Body and Society 355; author’s emphasis) The power of this feminine icon arises out of his uncertainty of female essence: The saeculum, for Ambrose, was a voracious sea, whipped by demonic gusts, across which there now drifted, in times of peace, the Siren songs of sensuality, of concern for worldly advantage, and of readiness to comprise with the great—beguiling, female figures who threatened always to “effeminate” the male resolve of the mind. (ibid. 348)

Resounding Silences

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Thus, Mary’s body is an ideal surface on which to map out the patriarchal order of Christianity precisely because it is a female body that defies its femaleness. All feminine “evils” are removed—no vulnerable orifices, and no potential for pollution either through menstruation, intercourse, or childbirth. But power also emanates from the tension of the boundaries themselves, as Mary Douglas demonstrates in Purity and Danger : . . . all margins are dangerous. If they are pulled this way or that the shape of fundamental experience is altered. Any structure of ideas is vulnerable at its margins.We should expect the orifices of the body to symbolise its specially vulnerable points. Matter issuing from them is marginal stuff of the most obvious kind. (121) The paradox of virgin mother offers many other possibilities, not all of which are welcomed by Christian orthodoxy. She is, after all, still female, and therefore always potentially dangerous if the boundaries are not maintained. As Theresa Coletti remarks: “Because of their openness and temporal instability, the ambiguous boundaries of the female body can only be thoroughly confounded by the idea of a virginal maternity. In the West generally . . . Mary is invested with the powers and dangers of her anomalous body” (“Purity and Danger” 70). The potentially threatening aspect of Mary became apparent as apocryphal accounts enjoyed greater popularity in England and on the continent. These accounts, focusing less on her body and more on her life, allowed too much space into which her ordinary human aspect might intrude. Thus, much debate ensued over what the Church was willing to allow regarding Mary’s Nativity and Assumption.1 Controlling Marian dogma was essential for maintaining the purity of her body, the enclosed womb, and the patriarchal order it supports, since the Blessed Virgin, properly cast, prescribes a model for women and also provides a way to control the dangerous orifices associated with the female body.2 Maintaining such control is difficult, though, particularly with such an anomalous body around which many and varied stories circulate. Mary Dockray-Miller detects ruptures in an otherwise smooth surface of Mariolatry in the Old English Advent.3 Although the poem abstracts and makes passive in the extreme the figure of the Virgin Mary, she argues that in key places Mary’s maternal performance disrupts the process of objectification and points to Mary’s power. As Dockray-Miller herself demonstrates, though,

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Mary seems to be exemplary in her submissiveness. Whatever power she does display is channeled properly. The orthodox position on Mary, the importance of the virgin’s body, and the threat of apocrypha to expose dangerous fissures are all apparent in the homilies of Ælfric. Out of the ten Anglo-Saxon Marian homilies extant, Ælfric wrote five, attesting once again to his large corpus and to his lasting impact. Ælfric lauds Mary’s virtue, but is careful to stay within the acceptable boundaries. For Ælfric, her primary function is as a vehicle for the incarnation. After that she is an example for all to follow as closely as possible. She is important not in herself, but in relation to Christ and the Church, representing as she does the marriage of the divine and the human, Christ and Church, spirit and flesh. Thus, in the Purification homily, Mary figures only to present Christ at the Temple. The main point of the homily has nothing to do with her; it is the recognition of Christ’s divinity by Simeon and Anna. Many have commented on Ælfric’s resistance to apocrypha, generally attributing it to his fear of falling into gedwyld, heresy. Clayton notes that Ælfric knew what belonged in the canon and did his best not to step outside of it, although he does at least accept that Mary’s parents were Anna and Joachim. His first homily on the Assumption follows what he considers to be an authentic letter by Jerome, the Cogitis me, actually written by the Carolingian theologian and reformer Paschasius Radbertus. The second time around, he has nothing new to add, so he relates the story about Mary and Martha, adding in conclusion: What more shall we tell you about this feast day, except that Mary, mother of Christ, was on this day taken from this toilsome world up to the kingdom of heaven to her dear son. . . . If we say more about this feast day than we read in the holy books, which were set down through God’s command, then we would be like those heretics who wrote, according to their own agenda or dreams, many false accounts. But the believable teachers, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, and many others, have turned away from them through their wisdom.4 When he does use apocryphal texts, he is careful to maintain orthodox principles. Although Mary has special knowledge, the apostles always know more:

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And she clearly revealed to them everything concerning Christ’s humanity, because she had from the first wisely learned all those things through the holy ghost and seen them with her own sight, though the apostles through that same ghost understood all things and were educated in all truth.5 Again in the homily on the Lord’s Nativity, Mary has special knowledge but, knowing her place, keeps it to herself: Mary truly cherished all those words, pondering them in her heart. She would not divulge the mystery of Christ, but waited until he himself revealed it when he wanted. She knew God’s law and read in the writings of the prophets that a maiden would give birth to God. Then she rejoiced that she might be the one.6 From a reform perspective, she is the best kind of literate woman: well studied and well behaved. She reads much, speaks little, and writes not at all. Ælfric’s homilies related to the Virgin Mary are focused specifically on her virginity. Her major qualification for carrying the Christ-child is her link to the male blood line of King David. Moreover, she is not just any virgin, but one purged of all womanliness so that she may be fit to bear Christ. This process, especially as Ælfric describes it, makes her into a gilt vase, a pure vessel; she has been cleansed of all humanity. Indeed, she defies human limits, Ælfric tells us, following the orthodox view: “A virgin she was before the birth, during the birth, and after the birth.”7 Mary’s objectification is even more marked in the first Annunciation homily, when she graciously accepts her position as God’s handmaiden, and seems even to participate in her own objectification, as Ælfric expands her statement to echo Psalm 18, commonly used of Mary: She said to the angel, “Let it befall me according to your word; that is, let it be as you say, that the Son of almighty God shall come into my womb, and take human substance from me, and for the redemption of the world step forth from me as a bridegroom from his bride bed.” Thus came our savior into Mary’s womb.8 Bringing together and condensing certain exegetical readings on Mary into this finely crafted passage, Ælfric produces a distillation of the Blessed

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Virgin bereft of all humanity even as she provides Christ’s humanity. This passage suggests the various relationships between God and Mary—she is at once mother, bride, and daughter. But even more intriguing is her construction not as person, but as place. She is used here as a sort of holding tank that provides the fleshly substance Christ takes on and, at the same time, as the bride bed that the bridegroom will presumably leave upon consummation of the marriage of divine and human. The sexual imagery serves only to underscore her lack of sexuality—and humanity; the actions have nothing to do with Mary, even though her body provides the locus of the mystical event. She has effectively been sterilized, polished, encased in her own womb, as it were. If Mary has thoughts or is given voice, it is only to accept or rejoice in her role in the incarnation. Generally, however, she does not speak. As central as she may seem to Christ’s mortal existence, she remains on the periphery in Ælfric’s texts. The homily for the feast of Mary’s Nativity is the most striking example. Completely skipping the feast in his first series of homilies, he is, perhaps, compelled to mention it in the second. He devotes a passage to her, entitled De Sancta Maria in order to explain why he will not compose a homily for the feast day: What shall we say about the birthday of Mary, except that she was conceived through a father and a mother, just as other people, and was born on the day that we call the sixth ides of September. Her father was called Joachim and her mother Anna, steadfast people under the old law. But we will not write more about that, lest we fall into any error.9 Ten years or so after writing his first collections of homilies, Ælfric composed a homily for the Nativity of Mary to be included in the revised edition of the first series. Interestingly, only the first fifty-four lines are concerned with Mary. This part tells briefly about her parents, her perpetual virginity, and her divine motherhood. Here, Ælfric emphasizes Mary’s choice in accepting God’s proposal. It is not Mary’s autonomy that is important, however, but her obedience: she accepts without hesitation and makes the right choice, as all good Christians should. The remaining 541 lines, under the subheading de Sancta Virginitate, discuss the Church, the duties of a good Christian, and the virtues of chastity. This part is essentially an explication of the first. That is, Mary herself and everything about her have become nothing more than a sign.

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Ælfric’s customary attentiveness to the figurative levels of reading effectively explains Mary away. Marian imagery is used heavily to expound on the nature of Ecclesia. The marriage of divinity and humanity takes place within Ecclesia, as it did in Mary, and Psalm 18 is used to underscore the point, with the Church itself now the bride bed. Moreover, Ecclesia bears Christ as Mary did, and is called queen, as Christ’s own bride. Mary and Ecclesia have become completely interchangeable. Throughout Ælfric’s corpus Mary is important not for her achievements, but for her relation to Christ and the Church: she represents the marriage of the divine and the human, Christ and Church, spirit and flesh. She provides a guide for proper feminine behavior, a model that is extended in the later period to all other female saints, regardless of their legendary or historical accomplishments. Ætheldreda, for example, founded a monastery and proved to be a courageous leader through various adversities, but she is remembered by Ælfric mainly for her exemplary virginity. Judith, the Old Testament hero, becomes a virgin in Ælfric’s text, and her purity is the direct source of her power. Agnes, likewise, is rewarded with God’s grace because of her virginal status; she is not powerful in her own right, but acts as a transmitter or vessel through which God may exercise his power. Power thus defined and reaffirmed in Ælfric’s representation of powerful women precludes the notion of female agency.10 Whereas male saints and heroes act on their own discretion and can hope to be rewarded for their actions, female saints merely stand as receptacles of divine power. If interpellation through the Marian model moves women toward passivity, the figure of Eve in the Junius Genesis, especially the part known as Genesis B, restricts the culturally intelligible female even further by making abject earlier forms of female agency, dematerializing the active female subject and attaching her to her male counterpart as adjunct or supplementary, subject to God through man. The poem derives from the Old Saxon Genesis, which found a welcome reception under the earlier Alfredian reforms. A product of the most stringent Carolingian reforms under Louis the Pious, the Old Saxon poem probably went through several revisions in Old English before yielding the fragment that now survives as Genesis B, part of the larger account of Genesis in MS Junius 11, which dates to around 1000 c.e.11 Genesis B recasts the fall of the angels and the creation and fall of Adam and Eve as an Old English epic, offering the most complete account of Eve in Old English. This refashioning of the biblical text functions, I will argue, as a reform

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apparatus, mapping out various subject positions in the Christian order of tenth-century England. Moreover, because Eve is so prominent, and because the poem centers so squarely on the question of the individual’s place in the cosmological order, Genesis B is an important text in which to explore the construction and gendering of subjectivity during an age of reform. I believe that the poem allows Eve to operate independently in order to demonstrate that she can only fail. In addition to the allegorical rendering of intellect versus sense and corporate versus personal subject positions, the poem effects a gendering of subjectivities and reveals the dematerialization of the female subject as abject, poisonous and poisoning body. The poem purports to relate the story of the fall of angels and of humans in accordance with the traditional narrative, though there are several departures from the metanarrative. Genesis B begins, if only accidentally, with God’s commandment to both Adam and Eve not to eat from a certain tree in the garden, which is, in the poem, called the tree of death. The narrative then shifts to an account of the fall of the angels, and a discussion between Satan and his entourage ensues, in which he calls for revenge upon Adam, who has usurped his rightful place. A messenger leaves hell to seek out and destroy Adam, confident that he can get him to sin mortally so that humans will no longer occupy a privileged position in relation to God. The messenger first approaches Adam, who refuses to listen to him because he finds his story suspect. Then the messenger finds Eve and tells her that Adam has refused to follow a direct commandment of God and that she must intervene, with the assurance that, if she gets Adam to eat the apple, he will not tell God. Eve says nothing, but shows her acquiescence by eating the apple. She immediately sees a vision of God enthroned in heaven and surrounded by angels. She then offers an apple to Adam and finally convinces him to eat it, using her vision as proof of its power. He does so and then immediately realizes his error. He blames Eve for misleading him, laments their (his) fate, and then Adam and Eve repent and pray for God’s forgiveness. The poem seems a radical departure from the traditional account of the Fall. Because of the complex development of Eve’s characterization compared to Adam’s rather shallow portrayal and the poem’s occasional departures from the biblical account, some scholars believe the poem to be heterodox, even bordering on heretical, and see Eve as a powerful subject in that context. John Evans contends that the poet actually exonerates Eve from guilt.12 Jane Chance and Patricia Belanoff see Eve

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as a well-intentioned and resourceful peace weaver.13 In an admittedly “female-sexist” reading, Alain Renoir argues that Eve’s intellect surpasses Adam’s, though Renoir’s argument is less than convincing.14 Anne Klinck asserts that the development of Eve’s character displays inner thoughts and emotions removed from social function, and therefore elicits greater sympathy from the audience/readership than does Adam.15 More recently, Susannah Mintz argues that Eve emerges with “renewed psychic health, a state where she does not reject but rather accepts the existence of the other—Adam, the tempter, God, and most emphatically herself ” (“Words Devilish and Divine” 61). While these readings pinpoint important aspects of the poem, the poem’s actual treatment of subject positions suggests a far more conservative text. Heterodoxy is certainly difficult to define for Anglo-Saxon England and while literal divergence from scripture may be used to forge heterodox views, they do not necessarily in themselves constitute heresy. In this case, the departures from the biblical text seem to underscore rather than undermine the attitudes and values central to the ideological framework it supports. The poem is an adaptation of the Genesis myth for a Germanic audience and the poet may well have been inclined to alter certain points to make the story more intelligible in that cultural context. A. N. Doane suggests that the textual variations encourage the reader/audience to rethink the common creation myth, giving it new currency: “The disjunctions force the audience to see the old story of the Fall with new eyes, as if it had never been seen before, and to see it in terms of what their own reactions to the situation would be. That is, the narrative is cast in the typological mode” (The Saxon Genesis 140). This strategy actively engages the reader/audience, encouraging identification with the characters. In so doing, the elaborate interior explorations become all the more poignant. Each person is compelled to look inward as well as out, not simply to learn about remote events from a remote period. The departures from the tradition serve as dramatic embellishments, while the poem as a whole remains orthodox in spirit and force. Doane notes Ambrose’s view that Eve’s “weakness was itself a sign that she should have obeyed only Adam” (ibid. 148), a perspective that rings true in this poem. Drawing its audience in rather than merely relating remote events about strangers in the distant past, the poem functions as an ideological apparatus, eliciting not sympathy, but empathy, and thereby seeking to reinscribe each member of the audience as the spoken subject, prompting each individual to reevaluate herself or himself in terms of the text.

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That the Genesis story provides a model of subjectivity for a Judeo-Christian audience is not a radical idea. Allegorically, after all, it relates the origins of the intellectual and corporeal aspects of humanity. Although exegetical writings on Genesis abound, the Old English Genesis B reenacts the construction of subjectivity implicit in the creation myth for a larger audience/readership. For that reason, it may be read as a material ideological device, in Althusser’s terminology, that serves to define the relatively new Christian Anglo-Saxon subject, where the language of comitatus and doctrinal learning intermingle, introducing the Christian ideal in the traditional terms of the comitatus bond. The poem is, then, an allegory of the Subject, written from the standpoint of the dominant ideology, that of the Church, through which each individual reader/listener is interpellated. The construction of the Christian subject here accords with the idealized notion of what Foucault calls the Christian “technology of the self,” where “obedience is complete control of behavior by the master, not a final autonomous state. It is a sacrifice of the self, of the subject’s own will” (Technologies of the Self 45). I would define this controlled self as the corporate subject. The ancient model of the comitatus bond between lord and thegn provides a workable framework for the Christian model and allows the concept of corporate subject to permeate all levels of social discourse—common and noble laypersons as well as ecclesiastical elite. It is important to remember, however, that Foucault’s model and the comitatus model are based on an ideal, not any sort of material reality. Even more importantly, gender does not enter into Foucault’s discussion of the Christian technology of the self, though it is certainly implicit in the formation of the Christian subject, as Margaret Miles and several scholars since have shown.16 The personal and the corporate are placed in opposition through the characters of Satan and Adam. Satan is motivated by self-interest, and the audience can almost see Satan’s reason vanish as his ego grows. Self-absorbed and narcissistic, Satan’s pride eclipses his sense of loyalty, and the personal takes precedence over public or corporate interests. No longer part of God’s comitatus, he is banished to Hell, where his ego festers in its humiliation. While personal desire obviously tempts Adam, and ultimately causes his downfall, his actions generally follow the Christian model for the corporate self: he is a loyal thegn who thinks, speaks, and acts in accordance with Christian and Germanic codes of honor. In response to the devil’s first temptation, for example, Adam stands firm, a selfsceafte guma or “self-fated” man, and responds formally and resolutely

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(maðelode): “I know what he himself commanded me, our savior, when I saw him last. He commanded me to guard his word and to hold it well, to carry out his instruction.”17 The word “maðelode” is used only one other time in the poem: Satan made a speech. Sorrowing, he spoke, he, who henceforth had to hold hell, to take charge of that land. He was formerly God’s angel, bright in heaven, until his mind seduced him and his excessive pride most of all, so that he would not honor the word of the lord of hosts. His mind welled up inside him around his heart.18 Adam’s resolve contrasts strikingly with Satan’s still strong but sorrowing speech. Here the poet positions for us the promise of Adam’s mindful corporate subjectivity in direct opposition to Satan’s perverse, willful abjection. Thus, the poem formalizes the split between personal and corporate selves in order to put forth the ideal model of the Christian self. In so doing, it reaffirms existing hierarchical structures and urges complete, even blind, subjection of the human to the divine, thegn to lord, and woman to husband/male guardian. The poem’s exploration of personal interiority operates in conjunction with the allegorical mode of understanding in which Adam represents intellect and Eve sense. Each encounter with the poem leads the individual to identify with Eve, since she is the conduit for psychological exploration in the poem, given the poem’s lengthy introspection during her temptation, much as Ecclesia and Mary figure as conduits between the divine and the human. Eve is exposed so that each listener may learn through her experience and, ideally, avoid his or her own personal downfall. Adam, in contrast, remains closed and intact. Although he sins too, his thought processes are not exposed to the audience in the same way. His act of eating the apple allegorically represents intellect giving in to sense. The implication is, of course, that the feminine is sensual and corrupt, while the masculine is rational and corrupted only by succumbing to the feminine. The poem, forcing all members of the audience to identify with Eve at the most private, interior level, personalizes the allegory so that each individual must overcome the sensual feminine impulse within her or his own self. The manuscript illustrations correspond with this reading of the poem. In Figure 5.1, top right, we see Adam and Eve together in the Garden. Both are about the same height, but Adam

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Figure 5.1. Garden of Eden, above; Satan bound in Hell, below. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Junius 11, p. 20. By permission of the Bodleian Library.

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quite literally shields Eve. His body eclipses hers, just as his position as subject does. On the top left side of the same image, we find Eve alone in the Garden and vulnerable to the serpent’s advances. In Figure 5.2, depicting Eve’s temptation of Adam, the two are barely distinguishable. Adam has long hair in this particular frame, though it is short elsewhere,

Figure 5.2: Temptation of Adam (above) and lamentation of Adam and Eve (below). The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Junius 11, p. 31. By permission of the Bodleian Library.

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and both are pointing, indicating the conflict. The fact that Eve wins the argument and Adam takes the apple, even as he continues to point, suggests the role reversal and the crux of the Fall—reason yields to sense, male to female.19 Reading specifically for the female subject in Genesis B is more problematic. One major difficulty is that the tension between the corporate and the personal ultimately comes to be defined in terms of masculine and feminine. An even greater obstacle is the mystifying character of Eve, as Gillian Overing has shown in “On Reading Eve: Genesis B and the Readers’ Desire.” Although Adam always occupies the center of the poem, as several scholars have demonstrated, and although Eve is characterized as having a weak mind, Eve, despite her actions, captures the audience’s imagination and sympathies much more surely than Adam can ever hope to. But while this indicates to some scholars a strong, autonomous Eve, I remain skeptical. The illustrations display both the strengths and limitations of Eve’s character, producing at times a semblance of equality and at times clear marks of inferiority. Adam and Eve appear on apparently equal terms in three places in the poem: when God commands both Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of Good and Evil; when the messenger tempts both Adam and Eve; and when God judges Adam and Eve. Closer reading of both verbal and visual texts, however, suggests otherwise. In the poem, the first two instances, which depart from the traditional scriptural text, inscribe Adam’s superiority in judgment and obedience; the third, which follows the scriptural tradition, ratifies gender inequality. The visual images correspond to and support the verbal text, adumbrating Eve’s inferiority in the gender hierarchy already clearly in place. When God delivers his commandment to them both, for example, Eve stands behind Adam (Junius 11, page 10, not shown), her foot just edging out of the frame, suggesting her transgressive nature. In a dual temptation scene mirroring the poem’s innovation that both Adam and Eve are tempted (Figure 5.3), the conflation of the sequence of temptations presented in the narrative suggests that both Adam and Eve face the same test but respond differently, according to their innate capacities for judgment. Whereas Adam’s stance and gesture display his suspicion, his critical acuity, and his refusal, Eve simply takes the apple with pleasure. The image of God’s judgment (Figure 5.4) presents Adam and Eve on equal footing below God as they are simultaneously cursed by him. This image seems less to suggest equality of souls before God than to mirror in its composition the earlier

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Figure 5.3: Dual temptation of Adam and Eve; Adam refuses, Eve eats the apple. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Junius 11, p. 28. By permission of the Bodleian Library.

dual temptation scene (Figure 5.3). As Dockray-Miller points out, the gender-specific curse placed on Eve orders her into the inferior position in the gender hierarchy and “such a construction is actually nothing new within the gender terms of this poem” (“Breasts and Babies” 233). As in the Old English versions of the transvestite saints’ lives, the narrative works to seal off any potential ruptures. Here the force of the verbal text, which simply reiterates what the audience would have already known to be truth, together with other visual and verbal elements, elaborated on below, precludes any possibility for gender equality in this image. The anatomical ambiguity of both Adam and Eve has been noted by many. In fact, it is not until their transgression that male and female forms are clearly distinct, as Karkov has shown. When the Messenger returns

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Figure 5.4: Dual judgment of Adam and Eve. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Junius 11, p. 44. By permission of the Bodleian Library.

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to Hell triumphant, the manuscript illustration (Junius 11, page 36, not shown) depicts Adam with a beard, and Eve’s hair, which has been loose and even disheveled, appears braided. Adam, whose face is bare in the dual temptation scene (Figure 5.3), sports a full beard in the judgment scene (Figure 5.4). The heightened awareness of gender difference may mark the new separation of body and soul, which God declares soon after: “For you is made known the distinction of body and soul.”20 Prior to the Fall, then, body and soul had been linked. Any physical marks of gender, therefore, imply the gendering of the soul as well. Dockray-Miller observes that gender has been marked throughout in the representation of nipples in the images associated with Genesis. Adam’s nipples, when defined (see Figure 5.3, for example), seem ornamental, perhaps following Augustine in City of God, who sees men’s nipples, like their beards, as ornamentation. Eve’s nipples, however, are elongated. For Dockray-Miller, the elongated nipples display Eve’s maternal potential and the power associated with that potential. She also notes, however, that the visual distinction signals the danger inherent in the female body and foreshadows the punishment for her inevitable transgression. That breasts mark the distinction is significant if we follow, as Dockray-Miller does, Eric Jager’s connection of Old English breost with the center of human speech and reason, so that the breast (or chest) becomes “the bodily and spiritual center of the Fall” (The Tempter’s Voice 176, cited in Dockray-Miller, “Breasts and Babies” 240). Eve’s mark of bodily difference at the center of human speech and reason recalls the traditional opposition of male reason and female sensuality and signals the inferiority of Eve’s intellect. The strength of Eve’s mind and soul is uncertain, however. Her ambiguous character in both verbal and visual texts supports variant readings by scholars trying to decide whether her portrayal works for or against women. Patricia Belanoff, for example, argues that Eve is flawed and negative in presentation.21 Belanoff then observes, however, that Eve ultimately emerges as a “strong and sympathetic character” (“The Fall (?) of the Old English Female Poetic Image” 828). In a more striking passage, she remarks that “Eve may represent the undercutting of the traditional female image of Old English poetry—but she also represents the power of that image to resist the combined religious, literary, and political pressures undermining it” (ibid. 829). Finally, Belanoff concludes that “Eve in Genesis B may not be a ‘good’ woman in the Christian sense, but she is a strong, self-willed one” (ibid.). “Self-willed” seems to be something of an overstatement, however, since Eve is manipulated into action.

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Overing, too, argues that if Eve’s subjectivity is to be located anywhere in the poem, it is precisely at the moment of her choice, her eating of the apple—the moment in which she accepts her role as peace weaver, acts upon it, and becomes eloquent in her temptation of Adam. In Overing’s view, Eve initiates human language in the poem. Up until that point, even Adam’s language was divinely derived, operating in an absolute one-to-one signification. Eve does not speak at all until she sets out to tempt Adam, and, when she does, signifier and signified no longer correspond in a neat one-to-one formulation. Eve introduces humanity and difference, and in that act the possibility of her own subject position emerges. In Overing’s reading, however, Eve’s subjectivity is only fleeting. The moment of their discovery and repentance reasserts masculine domination in the poem, human and divine, and Eve settles back into silence. According to Overing, “this reclamation is a reidentification of the masculine subject, a realignment of the divine/masculine with the human/masculine, that the divine and human word are both metaphorized via the masculine body” (“On Reading Eve” 62). That realignment rematerializes Adam as flawed but speaking subject. He immediately takes charge and even presumes to speak for Eve, whereupon she offers her last words of the poem: “You can reproach me, my lord Adam, with your words, though it cannot grieve you in your mind worse than it does me in my heart.”22 For all his mastery of language, knowledge, and the situation, Adam cannot know Eve. For Overing, this signals the silencing of Eve’s subjectivity: “When Adam’s words fail to speak what is in Eve’s heart, the mystery of Eve’s subjectivity deepens into silence; she becomes mortal, but spoken” (“On Reading Eve” 63). In Foucauldian terms, too, Eve’s transgression and then her subsequent contrition indicate first her emergence as an individuated self and then her utter compliance with the Law, which makes her, at best, a corporate or Christian subject, a “team player.” Her silence, however, suggests she becomes less than that. Adam’s speech displays and enacts complete agreement with God’s law; Eve simply melts away in abjection. Her repentance at the end negates her newfound subjectivity, as she once again complies with the dominant ideology and loses her self in it. The corresponding manuscript illustration (Figure 5.2, bottom) depicts at this moment Adam praying while Eve, distraught, curls up on the ground and weeps. She is, it seems, subject to God only and completely through man.

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Still, the question of Eve’s will is problematic. Two of the poem’s departures from the traditional myth are crucial to deciphering the figure of Eve. She seems to be on a par with Adam at the beginning of the poem when God forbids them to eat of the tree of death. But the dual temptation scene, where the messenger approaches Adam first and then Eve, proves her inability to make truly important decisions. If Eve comes across as a strong character, it is because the narrator spends so much time exploring her temptation. In that process of temptation we see that Eve is vulnerable in different ways. Where Adam stands firm on God’s earth, the selfsceafte guma, a self-made man fully in control of his fate, Eve stands “sceone gesceapene” (Doane, The Saxon Genesis 549), “beautifully shaped.” The devil characterizes her as a “wif willende” (ibid. 560), “compliant woman,” which her later actions will verify. Eve’s vulnerability is evident in Figure 5.1. The lower portion of the picture displays a winged, bound Satan enjoining his emissary to corrupt humanity. In the garden above, Eve is protected by Adam (top right); alone and unshielded (top left), however, she appears open to seduction by the messenger who has taken the form of a serpent. It is not her willful, defiant spirit that causes her to stray, as in Satan’s case; it is her lack of resolve. She is too easily swayed. In contrast to Satan, what wells up inside Eve is not her mind or spirit, but the devil’s thought: “Thus he led with lies and seduced with skill the woman in that unrighteousness until the devil’s thought began to well up inside her. The measurer had created for her a weaker mind so that she allowed her mind to follow that teaching.”23 She does not exhibit Adam’s resolve; she has a weaker mind (wacran hyge). Moreover, in his temptation the serpent appeals to Eve on an emotional rather than rational level and sets up a crisis in which she feels compelled to choose. Doane suggests that the serpent triggers in Eve a defense of Adam, her repressed desire for self-advancement, and, connected to that, her secret anger at being subjected to Adam instead of an independent subject in her own right. All three prompt her to act. The serpent’s conspiratorial tone, Doane argues, also appeals to her (ibid. 145). Eve’s greatest vulnerability, however, is her lack of knowledge, her inability to read at more than a literal level. Unlike Adam, Eve cannot see through the demon’s disguise. It may be simply that she reads like a woman.24 She does not know how to interrogate the messenger in order to determine the truth, as Adam does. Though both she and Adam have heard God’s commandment, Eve is ill equipped to handle the serpent’s

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subtleties and honor the commandment. Adam, confident in his relationship with God and his knowledge of God, simply replies that the serpent’s message makes no sense in his world. Eve, on the other hand, is not so sure of herself or of her knowledge of God. She can entertain other possibilities, see how the serpent’s scenario makes sense. While this can suggest the admirable quality of open-mindedness and flexibility, it also suggests a high level of impressionability. The illustration on page 28 of the manuscript indicates Eve’s impressionability in its depiction of the dual temptation (see Figure 5.3).25 Both Adam and Eve encounter the very same messenger, but Adam sees through the showy disguise and refuses to take the apple, while Eve takes the apple with apparent delight. For Karkov, “Like the bad reader or listener, she is taken in by surface appearances and cannot see things for what they really are. The artist shows us exactly what Eve really claims to see, a figure that looks like an angel, and nothing more” (Text and Picture 113). Since God has commanded both her and Adam not to eat of the tree of good and evil in this version, none of these explanations convinces fully. Wouldn’t a literal-minded person adhere more stringently to the letter of the Law, especially if commanded by God himself? For Eve’s temptation to really make sense, Eve would have to be harboring feelings of distrust—of Adam, herself, and God. Adam knows that God will not change his mind; Eve does not. She believes that Adam has erred in judgment, which indicates her pride and mistrust. Doane goes so far as to suggest that Eve sees in the serpent’s offer an opportunity for her own advancement.26 In the final analysis, it may be not that Eve does not think, but that she thinks too much. Adam does as he is told without question. Eve, on the other hand, needs to understand the reason behind the rule. The serpent’s suggestion, then, finds a receptive listener because she is not satisfied with merely following. This desire to know makes her dangerous. The crisis of the poem, then, stems not from Eve’s subjectivity, but from her deluded state in which she believes she might be an autonomous subject. She succumbs to the myth of female subjectivity. If Eve appears strong at several moments in the poem, her confidence derives, according to Doane, “from her egotistical sense that she has chosen rightly” (The Saxon Genesis 149), her newfound subject position. In her new state of self-assurance, Eve sees in a vision God enthroned, surrounded by angels. Her vision is not a gift of God, however, but, as Doane puts it, a “parody of true illumination.”27 If it is a true insight, she does not have

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the intellectual capacity to understand it and therefore, in a moment of dramatic or poetic irony, misreads it as a vision of hope when it most likely signals the Last Judgment. What Eve demonstrates is the illusory character of that subject position. She does not fall through simple pride as Satan does, though perhaps there is some element of that. Her vulnerability in the temptation scene springs from her awareness of her already abjected position. Much as Shakespeare’s Iago molds Othello’s thoughts and guides his actions by cultivating his insecurities and enlarging breaches in love and trust and faith, the tempter insinuates himself into Eve’s mind, capitalizing on the emotional vulnerabilities that stem from her position as Other. As Doane argues, while the serpent appeals to Adam’s sense of loyalty, “the seduction of Eve is conceived on a broader front, by appeals to her emotional attachment to Adam, with its potential for fear, and to her subordination to Adam, with its potential for resentment” (Saxon Genesis 143). In short, Eve’s propensity for sinning derives directly from her female condition: her “wacran hyge,” her subservience to Adam, and her emotional rather than rational response mechanism, in accordance with the traditional stereotype. If Eve’s character holds any potential strength, it is in her role as peace weaver. But the ancient Germanic concept of friðusibb or freoðuwebb remains obscure, and the question of its historicity and its value remains open. Obviously, her execution of the role depends on the perception of the role in the first place. For Jane Chance, the peace weaver is trained to be passive, weak, accommodating; Eve’s capacity as peace weaver, therefore, exonerates her from all guilt, since she could not have chosen differently under the circumstances: Thus Eve fails here not because she is unintelligent or inferior to Adam but because she has not been trained to resist, to fight, to remain strong against an adversary, and because this “best of women” in an Anglo-Saxon society would have been trained instead to concede, to ameliorate, and to harmonize. (Woman as Hero 74) Overing, too, remarks that “[f]emale failure, or nonsignification, is built into the system, where woman’s primary social role is essentially untenable, predicated on absence and paradox” (“On Reading Eve” 48). Overing even goes so far as to say that Eve succeeds, rather than fails, as peace weaver, doing exactly what is expected of her, and that that is the paradox.

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Both Chance and Overing seem to base their conclusions about the peace weaver on Beowulf, however, which survives only in a late manuscript and cannot therefore witness the ancient Germanic function of the peace weaver, only a much later, Christian perception of that function. Helen Damico brings in linguistic, historical, and literary evidence beyond Beowulf to offer a more complete picture of the friðusibb. Drawing on Grønbech’s linguistic analysis of frið and sibb, Damico concludes that “[a] character who is friðusibb, then, would exemplify a state of peace marked by vigilant activity and a security brought about by action that has been armed and may again become armed” (Beowulf’s Wealhtheow and the Valkyrie Tradition 85). It is not her job to acquiesce, as Chance believes, but to negotiate and maintain terms of peace as a modern ambassador or secretary of state might. Eve’s failure comes not from her practicing her role, then, but from her poor abilities to do so. She exhibits no powers of discernment and cannot tell she is being misled. Far from indicating Eve’s power, therefore, her position as peace weaver demonstrates her innate weakness and the inherent flaw in the concept of weaving peace through a woman in the first place. For the women in the poem’s audience/readership and in late Anglo-Saxon society more generally, the abjection of Eve is devastating because it disables and immobilizes female autonomy on so many levels. She is a weak vassal who cannot be trusted; she has inferior intellectual abilities; she is unable to read as a man; she functions on the emotional, rather than rational, level; and her vision, the quality for which earlier Germanic women were once revered, is flawed. For all these reasons, she must be properly shielded, protected, subjected. And for all these reasons, she cannot be entrusted with the important position of peace weaver. In fact, the poem suggests, no woman should. The denigration of Eve and her womanly role as peace weaver, therefore, supports the overall antifeminist aims of the Benedictine reform. The queen is no longer regal consort and counselor of the king; she is not a visionary; she is not to be entrusted with state secrets, nor is she to be entrusted with weaving peace between nations. Instead of a cup of health, Eve, the poisonous, poisoning peace weaver, offers death. As early as the Alfredian reforms, therefore, subject possibilities for women were becoming restricted. Eve of Genesis B, like Ælfric’s Mary, serves to inscribe proper roles and behavior for women, to teach and to warn. These are not the outspoken figures presented in the Christ poems.

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In their subjection to masculinist order, these two powerful icons provide a medium for interpellation, effectively silencing the female subject in mainstream Anglo-Saxon culture of the preconquest period.


Chapter 6

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim Claiming Her Voice The voice of Hrotsvit rings out loudly in contrast to the resonant silences of late Anglo-Saxon women. She has been praised as the first known Christian playwright, the first female historian in the West, the first Saxon poet, and even the first feminist.1 Self-described as clamor validus Gandeshemensis, the “strong voice of Gandersheim,” the tenth-century Saxon canoness enjoyed certain privileges that even her most noble Anglo-Saxon sisters did not. The extent and richness of her texts, as well as her linguistic, narrative, and dramatic choices, provide much to examine in terms of female subjectivity and make Hrotsvit the appropriate subject for the final chapters of this book. While Hrotsvit’s dramatic and poetic narratives follow the dominant current of ecclesiastical discourse, her treatment of common themes, such as virginity and beauty, can be profitably examined in light of recent theories of gender and power. Scrutiny reveals that Hrotsvit’s literary vision, even as it supports reform movements of her own time, recreates rather than reaffirms the traditionally male-dominated genres of history, epic, drama, hagiography, and allegory. Though we know little about her beyond her works, we can safely say that Hrotsvit’s genius owed as much to the culture of Ottonian Saxony as to her own class privilege within that milieu. Peter Dronke demonstrates that Hrotsvit was connected with the Ottonian court, that she thrived on the intellectual and cosmopolitan atmosphere there, and that she may even have been tutored by Rather of Verona. Dronke bases part of his argument on poetics: Ostensibly [Rather] came to give [Archbishop] Bruno some advanced literary teaching; but the fact that Rather cultivated a distinctive style of rhymed prose, which has notable parallels in 121

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Reform and Resistance Hrotsvitha, makes it tempting to suppose that, in Rather’s years with Otto, Hrotsvitha too received instruction from him, and then tried to model some of her mannerisms on his. Especially her longest and most complicated sentences, often filled with coinages and new formations as well as rhymes, have to me a markedly Ratherian ring. (Women Writers 56)

Hrotsvit’s connection to the court of Otto I offered her a great deal of support in her endeavors, and the less restrictive ecclesiastical control east of the Rhine in newly converted Saxony allowed her to maintain that connection, obtain a first-rate education, and create her own textual space.2 The Carolingian reforms crumbled with the dynasty in the early 900s, plagued by internal family strife and leaving newly converted Saxony to reassert older kinship ties and petty monarchies rather than dependence on a centralized government. It was this cultural fragmentation that allowed Henry the Fowler to establish the Liudolfing name and Otto I to ascend to the position of emperor. This cultural circumstance also encouraged female piety to the extent that female communities surpassed male communities in number and, at times, in cultural achievement. The male communities of St. Emmeram, Corbie, Corvey, and Fulda exhibited intellectual excellence, but Gandersheim, Quedlinburg, and Essen, to name only the most famous of the Saxon female communities, were prominent in their own right. The royal community of Gandersheim, though always successful, flourished particularly during Hrotsvit’s time. Its aristocratic roots and careful guardianship by the Carolingian and Ottonian ruling families with which it was connected paved the way for complete independence under Otto I. Dronke characterizes Gandersheim during this period as a community of powerful noblewomen craving independence, though he is quick to add that such an arrangement served the male nobility as well: At least in Hrotsvitha’s lifetime . . . Gandersheim was a small, proudly independent principality ruled by women. Such independence will also have suited the Ottonian dynasty politically, since it gave the unmarried women of royal blood a certain power and intellectual scope, and lessened the danger of their marrying princes outside the family, who might loom as rivals for the throne. (Women Writers 55)

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Whatever the reasons, Gandersheim became something of an intellectual utopia for women of the nobility who otherwise might have found themselves in unhappy political marriages: The nuns and canonesses at Gandersheim shared certain intellectual aspirations, which were essentially those that had been realized by Radegunde, Agnes and their circle at Poitiers. The intellectual ideal, which implied cultivation of the mind, the study of major authors both pagan and Christian, and literary exchanges with learned men, was combined with a social ideal, a gracefulness of behaviour towards others, in which an aristocratic habit of gentilezza blended with Christian love of one’s neighbour. These intellectual and social impulses culminated in the spiritual—the attempt to lead a life serenely dedicated to Christ. (ibid. 56) Although I am not convinced that this is an accurate depiction of lived monastic experience at Gandersheim (or any community, for that matter), it is this ideal that fosters Hrotsvit’s achievement. But the ideal must be conceived in terms of lived experience. The intellectual community Dronke imagines as an idyllic hamlet undisturbed by worldly concerns is really always tempered by social, political, historical, and philosophical constraints. While admiring Hrotsvit’s bold accomplishments and the intellectual fervor of Gandersheim, Wemple reminds us that Hrotsvit’s vision is always limited by the language and culture that have produced her: . . . it is certain that Hrotsvitha was not aware that earlier, eighth century abbesses could run double houses, hear confession of the members, both male and female, and give absolution three times a day. She also did not know that nuns and canonesses were allowed to enter near the altar, touch sacred vessels, care for the priest’s sacerdotal vestments, and distribute the body and blood of Christ. These practices were not reclaimed in the female monasteries of Saxony in the ninth and tenth centuries. If Hrotsvitha had had some perception of these very significant actions, she would have commented about them. . . . Imitating Terence in her plays, she could have certainly depicted the abbess having power over men and women and the

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Reform and Resistance nun being able to distribute the sacraments. Instead, we have only the women whose earthly authority is overshadowed by men and whose chief accomplishment is self-discipline. (“Monastic Life” 47)

The Carolingian reforms, though ultimately unsustainable, left their mark nonetheless. Although Nelson demonstrates convincingly that women, too, contributed to the writing of history, male clerics dominated the field and thereby became the primary shapers of cultural memory, obliterating signs of female agency and reinscribing historical women in roles more consonant with their own, dominant ecclesiastical views. The consistent revision of women’s history during the Carolingian reforms under the aegis of ecclesiastical authority, and under the pretense of praising those very powers they sought to limit, erased those powerful models of active female spirituality to which Wemple refers and replaced them with saccharine ones more socially acceptable under the increasingly rigid heteronormative ecclesiastic rubric. One need only compare the historical evidence of Leoba’s life with the ninth-century account written by Rudolf of Fulda to appreciate the loss of female agency in the revisionist quest of ecclesiastical reform.3 Despite restricted roles of women in the Church by Hrotsvit’s time and narrower perceptions of women more generally, Hrotsvit managed to create positive female literary subjects for interpellation of active speaking subjects among her audience. As Barbara Gold remarks: Hrotswitha establishes a space to define herself and the women’s culture in which she lived by creating a triple subjectivity for herself: as narrator of the lives of others (both fictional and traditional characters who are given life by the identification of her audience with them), narrator of herself in her Prefaces, and protagonist in her own stories by her self-reflexive identification with her characters. She becomes in this process not only a chronicler of women’s tales but also a creator of women’s history, not only an object of discourse but also the agent of a “conflicted history, inhabiting and transforming a complex social and cultural world.” In this way, Hrotswitha, a tenth-century canoness living in the Abbey of Gandersheim, was able to shape and to influence women’s ways of knowing. (“Hrotsvitha Writes Herself ” 60–61)


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A prolific writer, Hrotsvit left to us epics, dramas, and narrative poems. Other writings have not survived or have not been discovered. Nevertheless, the corpus of her works provides models for active female subject formation at various levels of society, both within and beyond the cloister. The underlying structure that binds her legends and dramas together may in itself be significant to understanding Hrotsvit’s poetic vision, since its apparent symmetry provides the infrastructure for her vision of an egalitarian cosmology. Hrotsvit’s epics work as a pair, mapping out an ideal sociopolitical matrix in which men and women support each other in the secular and spiritual realms. Her first epic, the Gesta Ottonis, praises the accomplishments of Otto I, the first Saxon emperor of the West. In this text, Hrotsvit departs from the traditional epic forms that serve as her models and offers instead a story of Otto’s piety, where his political achievements are always framed in terms of his family ties and domestic obligations. Highlighted here are his first and second wives, about whom we otherwise know little. The second epic, the Primordia Coenobii Gandeshemensis, relates the glorious history of Hrotsvit’s community of Gandersheim, from its foundation in the ninth century through the death of the last of Otto’s daughters as abbess in the tenth. This women’s epic dovetails nicely with her male-oriented epic of Otto, so that the two, taken together, provide a vision of male–female partnership. Just as Hrotsvit’s epics work in tandem, a structural symmetry may also bind her first book of legends with her second book of plays. This theory, first introduced by Hugo Kuhn and later adopted and developed by Dronke (Women Writers 60–64), finds in Hrotsvit’s legends and plays an intricate structural network that produces a single masterpiece. Kuhn attaches the second legend, Ascensio, to the first, the Maria, so that there are eight legends but seven distinct pieces altogether instead of eight as traditionally acknowledged. Likewise, while most scholars count only six plays, Kuhn believes the Apocalypse, a series of verses in hexameter, should be counted as part of the dramatic sequence, since it provides formal closure. Dronke has built on Kuhn’s theory, proposing that the Apocalypse, which scholars have traditionally viewed as tituli narrating illustrations, is actually meant to be performed. As support for his view, Dronke cites the contemporary Quem quaeritis, which is set down in the Æthelwold Benedictional at Winchester. Complete with “stage directions,” it is often considered the first liturgical drama in history. That Hrotsvit may have composed a similar piece opens up questions about

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the origins and spread of liturgical drama. At any rate, Dronke’s argument is certainly tenable. Whether they were actually intended as a single, unified masterpiece, it is quite possible that the legends and plays, if we accept Kuhn’s schema, were meant to create a structural symmetry between the two collections. The symmetry extends to the subject matter and presents interesting implications for understanding gender roles. The protagonists of the first and last legends are women, and the rest are men; conversely, the protagonists of the first and last dramas are men, while the rest are women. The plays have male villains, while the legends have female ones (though not exclusively). The plays are linked to the legends as the heroine of the first drama, Constantia, is healed and converted at the shrine of Agnes, the protagonist of the last legend. Other parallels between the two cycles show that Hrotsvit’s heroes, male and female, suffer similar trials and tribulations relating to aggressive suitors, martyrdom, the promotion of Christianity, fall and conversion, and the struggle to preserve virginity. The philosopher Dionysius finds his parallel in Sapientia; both “philosophers” demonstrate worldly as well as spiritual wisdom and take on the role of teacher as well as preacher. The importance of structural parallel for the purposes of this discussion is in its revision of female subject possibilities within the tradition of a rigid gender hierarchy. Like the Gesta/Primordia set, the legends and plays show men and women working together, though in different capacities, toward a common goal. Hrotsvit’s corpus still bears the marks of the tenth century, however, and while its subversions are remarkable to some modern scholars, aspects of her texts are problematic for others. Hrotsvit’s emphasis on virginity, beauty, and Christian ideals, since it appears to uphold patriarchal order, disturbs some feminist readers.4 Surveying the tradition of scholarship on Hrotsvit, Gold observes: Female readers of Hrotswitha and contemporary feminist critics have taken Hrotswitha to task to an even greater extent than many of her early male readers did. They do not see her as a precursor of feminist thought as Winterfeld did, but rather blame her for not being feminist enough or for being a nun with repressed sexual fantasies. Some have seen her plays as offensively Christian and patriarchal, the works of an “Uncle Tom trapped by male values.” Some of these critics, far from being surprised . . . by the freedom with which such a female medieval religious figure spoke in her


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works, have seen her religious identity and her insistence on chastity as a form of oppression that led her to treat her female characters in a sadistic way. (“Hrotsvitha Writes Herself ” 45)5 It is true, as A. Daniel Frankforter observes in his defense of Hrotsvit, that “Hroswitha is . . . not above an occasional remark disparaging the supposedly characteristic limitations of other members of her sex” (“Hroswitha von Gandersheim” 302). The examples Frankforter provides include Hrotsvit’s account of the matriarch Aeda fainting when John the Baptist appears to her in a vision, a reaction Hrotsvit ascribes to female weakness,6 and an incident later in that same poem when Hrotsvit recounts the overwhelming grief expressed by the nuns at Otto’s death, due to their feeblemindedness.7 He cites a third example from her Basilius, where she commends a brave girl for abandoning feminine weakness in favor of masculine bravery.8 These examples answer, in part, Frankforter’s main question: “How did an intelligent, perceptive female deal with an education and a society which frequently must have served to undercut her self-confidence and her self-respect?” (“Hroswitha von Gandersheim” 297). Certainly these moments point to Hrotsvit’s inability to extricate herself fully from the society that produced her. It is important to point out, however, that such moments reveal not only her immersion in that antifeminist culture, but also her awareness of the constructedness of it. The courageous young woman in Basilius is able to assume male courage. The only thing essential or natural to her being, as described by Hrotsvit, is her prudent heart. As for the earlier two examples, they seem to me to comment on, perhaps disapprovingly, mannerisms encouraged in and adopted by women in Ottonian society. More troubling aspects of her texts include the exploitation of female weakness as a way to demonstrate divine power, the promotion of traditional patriarchal attitudes toward the body and the threat of female beauty, and the treatment of rape, which even admirers of Hrotsvit’s literary achievement find difficult to accept. Schulenburg, for example, offers mixed praise in her most recent book, Forgetful of Their Sex. Though she admits Hrotsvit’s writings are remarkable in some respects, she nevertheless remains critical of their general force: We cannot dismiss the fact that as a product of her age, Hrotswitha was not unaffected by the overriding ecclesiastical patriarchal values and traditions which permeated her sources

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Reform and Resistance and intellectual milieu. Therefore, accompanying her ideas which celebrate the strength of women (frequently through the topos of weakness), we also find concepts and strategies that betray the traditional male ecclesiastical suspicion and distrust of the female body, express the fundamental fear of female beauty, and propound the need for women to obliterate or expunge all signs of their attractiveness in order to save themselves as well as those innocent men whose lives they might destroy. Furthermore, we can note in her work the patristic writers’ underlying skepticism in regard to the innocence of the victims of rape. In this, Hrotswitha of Gandersheim’s writings serve to reinforce male ecclesiastical control of women and their bodies. . . . Nevertheless, what remains particularly important is Hrotswitha’s refreshing defiance of much of the prevailing misogynist tradition and her characterization of strong, independent-minded mulieres sanctae, who continue to exercise a fascination in today’s world. (Forgetful of Their Sex 137–38)

Hrotsvit wrote from the perspective of the tenth century and necessarily carried biases consistent with orthodox ecclesiastical principles.9 Certainly, we cannot expect her to embrace the values of our time from the distance of her own. But Hrotsvit’s adherence to reductive views of women put forth in the dominant ideology of the Church is, I think, oversimplified. For one thing, Hrotsvit was not an enclosed nun, but a canoness who probably enjoyed frequent access to the Ottonian court, where she conversed with men and women of all ranks, including, perhaps, Rather of Verona and Archbishop Bruno.10 Moreover, Eva Cescutti demonstrates the probability of a greater quantity of female writing than was previously thought, which suggests a less distinct masculinist hegemony. Even though ecclesiastical views were predominantly shaped by male authors, they were likely not the only views in circulation.11 Finally, it seems to me that Hrotsvit’s depiction of beautiful virgins, fallen virgins, and those threatened by rape challenges rather than promotes objectification of women. There is no doubt that Hrotsvit promoted virginity and praised female beauty, while at the same time showing it to be a snare to entrap men. She also valued virilitas over what she characterized as feminine weakness in some of her writings. In accepting Hrotsvit’s representation of Christian ideals as unproblematized replications of patriarchal paradigms,


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however, the modern reader risks reinforcing and promoting those hegemonic strictures and ignores the possibilities for female subjects in her texts. Because definitions of being, though naturalized, are neither absolute nor immutable, it is not enough simply to observe repeating patterns of gender relations without scrutinizing the terms and effects of repetition. Is Hrotsvit’s valorization of beauty the same as other, masculinist treatments of it? If a female character reiterates patriarchal views, does that necessarily condone those views? Because replication and reiteration can be powerful tools of subversion, I believe that Hrotsvit’s texts can be profitably reevaluated in Butlerian terms, where “the repetition of heterosexual constructs within sexual cultures . . . may well be the inevitable site of the denaturalization and mobilization of gender categories” (Gender Trouble 31). Here I think Butler’s theories on gender and performativity help to complicate simple, universal definitions of gender relations and open up Hrotsvit’s texts as more productive sites for understanding gender constructions within their cultural context. Sensitive to historical textures, Butler defines gender as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (ibid. 33). She continues to argue that To expose the contingent acts that create the appearance of a naturalistic necessity . . . is a task that now takes on the added burden of showing how the very notion of the subject, intelligible only through its appearance as gendered, admits of possibilities that have been forcibly foreclosed by the various reifications of gender that have constituted its contingent ontologies. (ibid. 33) Reification and replication, then, become important points of focus for reexamining gender constructions. Rather than entering into maledominated territories to write “as a man,” or valorizing female characters by making them perform “as men,” Hrotsvit exposes the reified masculinist structures within each genre and revises definitions of gender in relation to power in depictions of heroism, intellect, virginity, beauty, and rape. In other words, Hrotsvit replicates conventional attitudes and values while inserting elements of difference that become productive sites of meaning in and of themselves. Instead of reaffirming patriarchal values, her emphasis on virginity and renunciation of the world seeks to put women in control of their bodies, removing them from the scope of the male

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gaze and female objectification endemic to the sexualized economies of marriage and prostitution and encouraging instead self-knowledge and inner spiritual growth. In her prefaces, which form a genre of their own, Hrotsvit forcefully creates herself as clamor validus and asserts that voice in the promotion and materialization of active female subject positions—for herself, her characters, and the women in her audience. Such an optimistic reading cannot go unqualified. The lengths to which Hrotsvit must go to clear and maintain her space are apparent throughout the prefaces. She is everywhere conscious of the scrutiny her works will encounter on the basis of her gender. Characterizing herself as a weak woman of little talent and drawing attention to the rusticitate of her work, she exploits the humility topos to its fullest extent. And yet her disclaimers always reveal her talents at the same time. In a striking portrayal of the artist as a young woman, for example, Hrotsvit explains how she began writing, stressing the need to hide her unpolished, childish pieces: But I did not dare to lay bare my impulse and intention to any of the wise by asking for advice, lest I be forbidden to write because of my clownishness. So in complete secrecy, as it were furtively, now toiling at my compositions alone, now destroying work that was badly done, I tried as best I might to produce a text . . . based on passages in writings I had gathered to store on the threshingfloor of our Gandersheim foundation.12 Perhaps her writing was immature and rusticus at the time. But this seemingly humble confession demonstrates her drive to write and her strong will. She does not want to be prevented from writing, so neither asks nor tells until she is sure to find acceptance and approval. Further down, she makes a more disparaging remark about the female gender that has often been taken as a straight avowal of female weakness: Though metrical composition seems difficult and arduous for women, frail as we are, I, relying only on the help of the evermerciful grace on high, never on my own strength, decided to harmonize the songs in this trifling work in dactylic measures.13 Dronke finds this particular disclaimer preposterous, and I have to agree. Not only should metrical composition prove no more difficult for women


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than for men, given proper training, but Hrotsvit also shows how adept she is at metrical composition, excelling even in heroic verse, which, she acknowledges elsewhere, is typically used by male writers. Likewise in her preface to the dramas, Hrotsvit must not only base her stories firmly in patriarchal tradition, but she must also construct herself as a weak woman in order to validate her text. Otherwise, no doubt, she would have been deemed presumptuous. Her very first sentence of the preface to the plays echoes Augustine’s dictum against enjoying worldly things, not as it pertains to the body, but to language: Many Catholics are found, who, because of the eloquence of more cultured language, prefer the frivolity of pagan books to the usefulness of holy scripture (from which deed I am unable to exonerate myself completely). There are others, clinging to sacred pages, who, although they spurn other pagan texts, nevertheless frequently read the fictions of Terence, and, while they are delighted with the sweetness of the language, they are soiled with the conception of abominable things.14 Clearing a space for herself to write, she goes on to justify further: Therefore, I, the strong voice of Gandersheim, have not hesitated to imitate him in writing since others honor him in reading, whereby in the same mode of composition in which are recited the filthy defilements of wanton women, the praiseworthy chastity of holy virgins may be celebrated according to the capacity of my small abilities.15 Clearly, she seeks to valorize not just Christianity but women as well, highlighting as she does the representation of female characters.16 Sue-Ellen Case summarizes the “classical inheritance” for women Hrotsvit seeks to revise: “They are relatively invisible, their responses are rarely dramatized and most often reported by men, they are manipulated as use value among men in the plot situation and their best possible ending is marriage—with or without consent” (“Re-Viewing Hrotsvit” 536). Hrotsvit objects strongly to the way Terence has represented women in his plays, and perhaps even more to finding, among others, Chancellor Bruno, who would later become archbishop, enjoying the satires overmuch,17 and she strives to set the record straight. But in order to compete against a male author, and

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one as prominent and popular as Terence, she must prove herself to be a talented artist in her own right. At the same time, however, she must not seem proud. Therefore, in her preface to the dramas she boldly assumes her authorial stance, “I, the strong voice of Gandersheim,” but proceeds to undercut it with a less confident confession that she writes only “according to the capacity of my small abilities.” She goes on to apologize for her lack of learning and style, but concludes that “I am not so much a lover of myself that in order to avoid censure, I would stop proclaiming the power of Christ, who operates through his saints, to whatever limit he himself enables me to do so.”18 She turns the humility topos against itself: the act of writing becomes proof of humility; pride would have kept her silent. Here and elsewhere she inverts the humility topos in the same way that Hildegard of Bingen will over a century later by arguing that, since God has given her talent, she would be committing the grave sin of pride if she did not share that talent through her writing. While her ability to write as a woman is put forth as proof of God’s supreme power and shames a skeptical audience into acceptance of her work, it also bespeaks Hrotsvit’s awareness of her own sharp intellect: For that reason, lest the gift of God be annulled in me on account of my negligence, if by chance I have been able to tease out any threads or even tufts from those patches torn from Philosophy’s robe, I have taken care to insert them into my aforementioned little work, so that the baseness of my ignorance may be adorned by the blending in of the nobler material.19 In this passage, Hrotsvit supplies another multivalent metaphor. First of all, the Boethian reference, as Dronke points out, serves to undercut her claims to ignorance. How ignorant can she be, after all, if she uses Boethius to illustrate her point? But it also becomes another pretense of humility, as Dronke explains: She knew well enough that in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy those who tore shreds from Philosophia’s dress were blindly skirmishing sects of pseudo-philosophers, men who thereby degraded Philosophia, grabbing at her dress as if she were a meretrix. It is another expression of mock-humility to suggest that she, in her use of Boethius, had done no more than that. (Women Writers 75)


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At the same time, however, the metaphor may be even more indicative of Hrotsvit’s revisionist quest. As Katharina Wilson remarks: The symbolic context of this reference is significant. The tear in Lady Philosophy’s robe is traditionally taken to represent man’s misuse of his free will and reason. Is Hrotsvit allegorizing in this sartorial metaphor of displacement the mending of that misuse? (Ethics 11) Since Hrotsvit uses material from Philosophy’s tattered robe to mend her own work, perhaps it can be seen more as an appropriation of philosophy for other than traditional ends. The metaphor also effects the reappropriation of the male-appropriated metaphor of weaving. Hrotsvit promotes herself as an active thinking, writing subject. To this end, she skillfully prevents censure by anticipating it and deferring to Christ’s authority, but never erasing her accomplishments in the process. In the letter to the monks of St. Emmeram, she contrasts male strength and learning with female weakness and ignorance. The ironic tone hinted at in her exaggerated exhortations is reinforced in her prayer: “Let the bestower of my talent justly be praised so much more grandly in me, the more dull a woman’s sense is believed to be.”20 This statement can be too easily glossed over as another straight avowal of female weakness; it is important to note, however, the explicit qualification in its wording: female intellect is not weak, though it “esse creditur.” Hrotsvit also assesses her talents for her readers, at the same time negotiating the fine line that divides pride and humility: “I do not deny that I know the arts, under the aegis of Grace, through the dynamis of the Creator, because I am an animal capable of learning, but I admit that I am completely ignorant through my own energia.”21 Explicitly acknowledging that she has a strong intellectual potential equal to that of any man, she laments only that her education had to end. Hrotsvit credits God with her talents, as expected, and claims that her potential has not been reached due to her own laziness and lack of training. It is conceivable that she surpassed her own teachers, though she would never say so. That she is lazy and ignorant is another matter. Dronke notes that “Hrotsvitha ‘demonstrates’ her ignorance by using deliberately recherché language—the Greek philosophical expressions per dynamin . . . per energian—that she will have drawn from a letter by St Jerome” (ibid. 74).

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Once again, she claims humility, but proves otherwise. For all her apparent self-deprecation, Hrotsvit’s prefaces showcase her learning and authorial craft. Dronke sees the prefaces as a mark of her growth and even goes so far as to call her presumptuous: What we can still trace with some precision, however, especially in Hrotsvitha’s Prefaces, is her growing—and changing—awareness of herself as artist. These Prefaces are written in the most artificial prose of which Hrotsvitha felt capable—yet paradoxically they are also full of self-revelations, at least between the lines. If we look beyond Hrotsvitha’s overwrought facades, beyond her topoi of humility that become almost presumptuous through sheer overinsistence, we can discover what was really on her mind. (ibid. 64) While I think the certainty with which we can understand her mind is overstated and optimistic, Dronke is right to point out the double-edged quality of these apparently humble confessions. Those are the points that merit our attention because “[w]henever Hrotsvitha alludes (as she often does) to womanly weakness, she is saying something rich in ambiguities” (ibid. 66). His discussion of the preface to the legends illustrates more clearly these ambiguities: Each admission of weakness is inseparable from an impulse of self-assurance, or self-reassurance. Partly Hrotsvitha is diffident about her venture, partly she pretends to be. It is the wavering between real and pretended diffidence that reveals to us the Hrotsvitha beyond the topoi, the woman who says, in effect: “Some of my legends are apocryphal? But there’s no absolute certainty in such matters. . . . I didn’t ask the advice of sages? No, I was too shy—and I was so determined to write anyway, that I did so secretly. Hexameters are too hard for weak women to compose? Perhaps, but, weak as I was, I still decided to.” (ibid. 66–67; author’s emphasis) The rhetoric of humility would seem to be warranted by her fear of censure. Her ability to slip in hints of sharp wit and intellect, however, indicates a strong sense of self-worth and demonstrates her belief that intellectual and artistic achievements have little to do with gender. As Janet


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Nelson maintains, echoing Natalie Davis, “the topoi of humilitas . . . acquire a special bite in the mouth of a woman. Behind protestations of incapacity, beneath modest (or prudent) anonymity, we should be prepared to find, sometimes, strenuae matronae” (“Gender and Genre” 197). Such is Hrotsvit. In her plays, legends, and histories, Hrotsvit writes within the bounds of dominant ecclesiastical discourse and masculinist assumptions, but she weaves in her own fashion, using only the materials she finds worthy. Throughout her works Hrotsvit combats the notion of female inferiority and promotes an egalitarian vision of paradise—not as a universe of men or androgynous beings, but as a universe in which male and female function in partnership. While she draws heavily from Augustine in certain areas, she blatantly ignores his gendered view of the imago Dei as set forth in De Trinitate, although she was probably familiar with the position, if not the passage.22 For Hrotsvit, all human beings are created in the image of God. Displacing the hierarchical heterosexual matrix that validates male domination, she reconstructs a new order, or perhaps hearkens back to the older tribal system of the Saxons.23 To be sure, her vision remains heterosexually determined and fundamentally Christian, but not hierarchical in terms of gender. Loosely following traditional generic forms and sources, Hrotsvit creates textual spaces for women, rather than relegating them to the subtext. Her variance from the norm and the lengths to which she must go to realize her vision are apparent in her epics, where she recreates familiar historical figures according to her parameters. The eccentricities of both epics are often attributed to her lack of source material. In her preface to the Gesta Ottonis, Hrotsvit remembers the vastness of the task of composition, having no sources to guide her. Some scholars question this claim, given certain similarities and textual echoes, though the relationship between Hrotsvit’s Gesta, Liudprand’s Antapodosis, and Widukind’s Res gestae Saxonicae has not been established.24 The dearth of source materials does seem puzzling, since sources for both epics did exist and since she would certainly have had access to royal libraries, especially since she was engaged to write both epics by members of the royal family. Her problem may have been with the nature of the sources more than their accessibility. If she had in fact had access to the other histories, they may not have offered her the information she wanted or needed to negotiate the difficult terrain of political intricacies and royal egos. Writing for Otto’s niece, daughter of the rebellious Duke Henry,

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she had to be especially careful not to relate the exact truth, so as not to offend.25 In any case, she claims to have relied instead on oral accounts. The departure from the sources, for whatever reason, permits her to move more freely through the material and to construct historical subjects according to her own attitudes and values. Hrotsvit’s Ottonian epic is unusual because it is not about military conquest. Indeed, many have noted her aversion to the details of war because of her admittedly female incomprehension of such matters: Yet, if a person of good judgment, who knows how to appraise things fairly, examines my work, he will pardon me the more readily because of the weakness of my sex and the inferiority of my knowledge, especially since I undertook this little work not of my own presumption, but at thy bidding.26 Otto is a successful warrior. In Hrotsvit’s epic, however, Otto is praised not for his brute force and military prowess, but for his piety and compassion. For Hrotsvit, piety is the most important mark of heroism, through which success is achieved by the grace of God. Otto’s accomplishments are credited to Christ, not Otto alone. His rebellious brother, Henry, also regains his sense of piety and submits because of Christ’s grace: “After these events, Henry, the noble brother of the king, touched in his inmost heart with the grace of Christ, pondered with himself and reflected with great sorrow upon what he had ever committed against justice.”27 Hrotsvit praises Otto’s compassion and piety in pardoning his brother and restoring peace throughout the kingdom. Heavy religious overtones overshadow his political act, and the impending Christmas season anchors it securely in Christian piety: When the king became aware of [Henry’s] desire he was overcome by a benign kindliness; and mindful of the approach of the feast of universal veneration on which the heavenly hosts sang peace to the world in their joy at the birth of their King, from a tender Virgin, that He might generously save the world which deserved to perish, Otto, in deference to the greatness of that peace-bringing day, pitied his repentant brother and sympathized with him in his admission of his offenses. And in his kindliness he granted him the enjoyment of his favor along with the loving gift of a full pardon.28


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When Henry, now forgiven, conquers the Avars, Christ is the true victor: “Besides and foremost, safe with the strength of Christ, he courageously sought out with a troop of conquered people the native land of this same wicked race, fighting against the nation that was rebellious against all other men.”29 Thus, the hero is a participant in his own successes, not an absolute agent. He is praiseworthy because he earns God’s aid, not because he alone overcomes his adversaries. Piety provides the fabric out of which Hrotsvit fashions her nontraditional panegyric of Ottonian power. Wilson argues that Hrotsvit models her epic on Old Testament figures rather than on the Aeneid, which had been the choice of Otto’s other biographers, and notes that “what makes her utilization of Old Testament analogies so fascinating is her superimposing of the parental, nourishing, compassionate aspect of Old Testament characters on the military and intransigently patriarchal ideal that is often employed” (Wilson, Ethics 120). In its new Saxon context, the Old Testament model not only accommodates Hrotsvit’s vision of Christian order, but also domesticates the political arena in which her heroes act and allows for greater possibilities for women within that order. The family is the base unit of empire, and the royal family becomes an important exemplum of familial values for the realm. Women, therefore, are crucial to Hrotsvit’s epic, even if they are not central to Otto’s exploits. Edith and Adelheid, Otto’s first and second wives, respectively, figure prominently as active and virtuous consorts. Moreover, piety is the most important heroic characteristic, and, as Timothy Reuter explains, “women were . . . responsible for providing the piety for a family” (Germany in the Early Middle Ages 229). Thus, Hrotsvit’s epic writes women into the male script that has so convincingly erased them. Far from imitating the traditional epic form, Hrotsvit presents peace as the true order, maintained largely through the influence of women, and war as a perverse disruption of that order. Hrotsvit’s focus on women throughout the poem and their importance to the empire is also unique. According to Wilson, Hrotsvit is the only tenth-century historian to provide any detail about the dynastic women, including Edith’s death and Adelheid’s escape (Ethics 114). Because her concept of “empire” is an extension of family, domestic roles are valorized and made public. By the same token, men do not operate in the public realm exclusively, but are continuously depicted in the more private, domestic arena as nurturers. The feminine perspective is underscored in the reconciliation scene between the two brothers. Introduced by an image of the Church, the

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scene shows Henry’s repentance, the benign piety of the victor (Otto), and the celebration of the virgin birth, evoking Christ through Mary. The conclusion of the forgiveness scene, rather than giving solace, curiously conjures up images of literal and figurative rape—of women and of the “nation”—as Henry, victorious against the Avars, seizes his “spoils” of battle in the form of women and children. This scene is puzzling because Henry seems to be making amends for his former treason, protecting Saxon borders from marauding tribes. He fulfills the role of compassionate hero as Hrotsvit describes him here: “Because he acted with the vigor of an understanding mind, preventing these continuous destructive wars of men [hominum], he had barred all the avenues of approach to us.”30 But then his actions call up a different vision. Earlier Hrotsvit had claimed ignorance of war, but here she seems to understand a good deal about it. Instead of expressing the glory of victory and military conquest, she demonstrates the cruelty and horror of war, especially toward women, even in a moment of glory for Duke Henry: “For taking possession of the various spoils which the common enemy had gathered as it laid waste very many sections of the world, he carried off also the wives and dear children of the leaders; and when he had thus vanquished his foes, he returned in joy.”31 Rape, here in its most technical sense of “carrying off,” is a fact of war rarely mentioned. Henry’s victory is depicted as an end to the cruelties of war inflicted on innocents, but his triumph is dampened by his subsequent actions, which, positioned directly against the spoils previously taken by the enemy, resonate more fully as the women and children are treated not as innocents, but chattel. This is one scene that refuses to whitewash the realities of war. Henry’s triumphant joy is further diminished in Hrotsvit’s text by its curious juxtaposition to the death of Edith: When these affairs had thus occurred, the mournful day for intensifying our deep sorrow speedily came for us, the day on which queen Edith, resplendent with eminent virtues, left the confines of this present life, causing by her death sadness and excessive grief of heart to the nation serving under her jurisdiction [better: command]. With intense grief—and deservedly so—the whole race mourned her, a race which she had cherished with a love rather of motherly kindness than had dominated with the severe ordinances of a tyrannical queen.32


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The narrative presents war as a necessary evil and a disruption of the true peaceful Christian order, rather than as a laudable achievement. Hrotsvit is thankful for protection from aggressors, but longs for peace, which seems to be the responsibility of women such as Edith. The hero in war defines himself as one who proceeds not with reckless conquest, but with compassion and prudence. Henry triumphs because of his prudence and demonstrated piety, but indulges in conquest as well. Edith seems to die almost as an escape from such a world. Hrotsvit redefines heroism in terms of Christian values of piety, peace, and compassion by phrasing the true glory of battle in terms of reconciliation, framing that core scene with female piety, and lamenting the horrors of war. It is a Christian vision shaped by traditionally feminine rather than masculine values. And it is a Christian vision in which women participate as actors in and shapers of their sociopolitical reality. The Primordia Coenobii Gandeshemensis, her second epic, is also nontraditional in that its subject is the monastery of Gandersheim. In that epic, the female monastic community at Gandersheim becomes the spiritual counterpart to secular Ottonian power, or a matriarchal continuation of it. Hrotsvit valorizes both in epic form, linking the rise of the Liudolfings to power and the foundation of the monastery through the same prophesy, disclosed to Aeda, matriarch of the realm, by John the Baptist. Founded by Liudolf, Otto’s ancestor, and Oda, Gandersheim became one of the most important educational centers of Saxony. Although Hrotsvit acknowledges men for their support of the community, she depicts the women as virtually independent in their spiritual and educational growth. The community at Gandersheim had long been an independent principality, though they would soon lose that privilege.33 Even when immunity was “official,” however, the community felt pressure from the bishops of Hildesheim throughout most of the tenth century until Gandersheim began to reassert its rights in the latter part of that century.34 Hrotsvit’s epic history may be an endorsement of independence in the midst of this struggle. Kinship to Otto was doubtless another guarantee of immunity, since his sister Gerberga was abbess and his son Wilhelm was the archbishop of Mainz. Hrotsvit’s epic enhances the connection to the Saxon royal house and downplays the bishops’ roles in the foundation story, promoting Gandersheim as an independent female institution and a matriarchal continuation of Ottonian power. In keeping with her attention to family, Hrotsvit does not single out Hathumoda as the sole founder of the monastery as her source

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text does. Rather, it is a family effort, even a community effort (Head, “Hrotsvit’s Primordia,” 149–50). Indeed, Hrotsvit omits all miracles and visions attributed to Hathumoda in the earlier account written by Agius. As Thomas Head observes, “In their place she substituted a series of visions granted to various members and servants of the Liudolfing clan, which transformed the clan as a whole into the agents of divine providence” (ibid. 149). Aeda’s vision of John the Baptist is followed by miraculous lights indicating the ground on which the monastery is to be built, first seen by swineherds, then observed by Luidolf himself. Finally, a dove leads Hathumoda to a plentiful supply of building stone, otherwise hidden from human eyes. Hrotsvit also downplays the pope’s donation of the relics of Sts. Anastasius and Innocent, two former popes, no doubt because the family provided a greater link to the past than the relics of two fairly remote saints could. As Head remarks: “In Hrotsvit’s narrative the collective actions of the Liudulfings became the conduit for the sacred into the life of Gandersheim. The very stones of its church became a divine, rather than a human, gift. These stories of miraculous visions were a necessary means of sacralizing the community’s well-established lineage” (ibid. 150). The epic acknowledges male patronage and support of the community’s foundation, but quickly becomes a story of female power, community, and independence. Aeda as visionary assumes what Head refers to as the “traditional Germanic role of the female seer” (ibid. 148).35 She encourages her daughter to take action and found the monastery. Liudolf undertakes construction in response to her constant pleading. The bishop is conspicuously absent—a significant authorial omission, considering the bishop’s historical role in the foundation and the community’s reassertion of independence in Hrotsvit’s own time. Hrotsvit’s language also emphasizes female power, even placing the abbess on a par with the bishop. Throughout, she uses two fairly rare words, “dominatrix”36 and “rectrix,” to describe the ruling women of the community, including Oda, who was never officially acknowledged as abbess, but was nonetheless deferred to as one: As the fond love of a wise mother now restrains her daughters by fear from wrongdoing and now even draws them by kindly exhortations to the desire of virtue: so this saintly woman instructed her dear foster children, now by the impelling law of an authoritative mistress [dominatrix] and now in the soothing manner of an affectionate mother.37


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Here, in the figure of Oda, motherhood is put forth as a model for wise and effective leadership. “Dominatrix” appears no fewer than ten times throughout Hrotsvit’s texts, four times in the Primordia alone. Eva May Newnan classifies “rectrix” as an “unusual word” meaning “director” or abbess; it is used in the Primordia three times. Just as “dominatrix” parallels “dominator,” “rectrix” parallels “rector,” a word Hrotsvit uses in reference to God, the pope, bishops, and abbots. She also introduces the word “praelata,” as a counterpart to the male “praelatus,” and “ductrix,” counterpart to masculine “dux,” to describe the abbess in Conversio Thaidis meretricis.38 Female subjects thus emerge as active, powerful, and astute agents like their male counterparts, with titles to match. The Primordia is a text of female community and the power of female piety. When read as a companion text to the Gesta Ottonis, this epic posits female spiritual power working in tandem with male secular power in the mutual quest for salvation. As Wilson explains, “the causa finalis . . . of the epics . . . is the glorification of God and the divinely inspired and protected sacerdotium and imperium (of the Gandersheim Abbey and the Ottos, and the ancestors of both, the Liudolfs) as well as the upholding of the Christian heroic ideal for secular and monastic Christian rulers” (Ethics 119). The two realms, secular and monastic, are mutually dependent and participate actively and equally in the realization of the larger Christian order. Taken together, the two epics connect both worlds in the service of the overarching divine order. The choice of Gandersheim as the model monastic community is a natural one for Hrotsvit, given its royal ties and her personal connection to the monastery. The choice of Gandersheim is also significant, however, in that it balances secular patriarchy with an active monastic matriarchy; after all, she might just as well have chosen the prominent male community at St. Emmeram to serve as a spiritual counterpart to secular power. In this way, Hrotsvit demonstrates female power and independence symbiotically linked to male power rather than subsumed within it.


Chapter 7

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim Recasting Female Subjectivities

Just as Hrotsvit’s epics depart from their sources to promote her vision of an egalitarian world order in which historical women emerge as independent subjects in partnership with men (rather than subject to God only through men), her poetic and dramatic hagiographical narratives recreate figures from Christian history according to those ideals. Hrotsvit is not only a product of reform and the expansion of learning accompanying the tenth-century reform movements; she is an agent of reform. That is, insofar as her texts promote imperial piety and are interested in presenting the world in terms of Christian piety, they are certainly reform texts. Her concern with virginity/chastity and enclosure also serves reform interests. Her education and the types of learning she displays in her plays, as well as her predilection for the dramatic form, also point to a positive association with continental reforms in her day, as James Forse has shown (“Religious Drama and Ecclesiastical Reform” esp. 53–55). Hrotsvit is unusual, however, in supplying active roles for women within the scope of reform. This chapter demonstrates how she negotiates that terrain through texts that explore issues of gender and subjectivity through the categories of virginity, beauty, and intellect. The texts most pertinent to this discussion include the legends of Maria and Agnes and the plays The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena (Dulcitius), The Resuscitation of Drusiana and Calimachus (Calimachus), The Conversion of the Whore Thais (Pafnutius), and The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Fides, Spes and Karitas (Sapientia).1 Her first legend, the History of the Nativity and of the Praiseworthy Conversation of the Immaculate Mother of God, Which I Have Found in the Works of Saint James, the Kinsman of the Lord (hereafter Maria), offers a 143

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useful contrast to the dominant ecclesiastical reading of Mary maintained by Ælfric and other ecclesiastical reformers of late Anglo-Saxon England as well as on the continent.2 It is important first of all that Hrotsvit draws attention to the character of Mary’s life, which is conspicuously absent in the orthodox accounts. While Hrotsvit acknowledges and respects the orthodox accounts, she seeks to fill in the gaps, even after she finds out that her source3 is not recognized in the eyes of the Church.4 The Maria is by far Hrotsvit’s longest legend and seems to subsume its companion piece, the Ascensio, completely, having 904 lines compared to 150 for the Ascensio. Along with her usual prefatory remarks regarding the inadequacy of her crude style to the subject matter, she inserts a disclaimer about the material itself: If the objection is made that, according to the judgment of some, portions of this work have been borrowed from apocryphal sources: to this I would answer that I have erred through ignorance and not through reprehensible presumption. For when I started to weave the thread of this collection, I was not aware of the fact that the authenticity of the material upon which I planned to work was questionable.5 As is typical of Hrotsvit, she offers only a halfhearted apology, never acknowledging that the work is heretical or misguided, only admitting that to some, parts are questionable. Moreover, she adds: “When I discovered the real state of affairs, I declined to discard my subject matter, on the plea that what appears to be false, may eventually be proved to be true.”6 Thus, Hrotsvit maintains a space within which to write the subject back into the sign. In this effort, she does not deny Mary any of her mystical properties. Mary is still an exemplary virgin who brought salvation into the world; she is the templum domini, as Hrotsvit calls her, but also doctrix and dominatrix. In Hrotsvit’s text, Mary provides a model for monastic women, singing psalms, weaving until the light is too dim to work, and then diligently praying late into the night, intuitively following (or introducing?) monastic hours. She also rectifies Eve’s transgression, as Christ does Adam’s, and she is undoubtedly blessed among women, but also among humanity. In this way, she supplements rather than acquiesces to the orthodox vision of Mary. Hrotsvit demonstrates what others dare not—Mary’s humanity. Following her source, she purposefully relates the


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more neglected aspects of Mary’s story instead of the more mainstream elements, as she explains: These things are all told in the Gospels, and they far exceed our feeble effort of narration. Therefore omitting them because they are known to all, we shall take for you from them only that instruction which we believe to be rarely mentioned in the house of God.7 Finding the dominant accounts lacking, she proceeds to fill in the gaps. She also chooses not to focus on Joseph’s grief and confusion over Mary’s pregnancy, as others do. This is Mary’s story. Hrotsvit’s account thus offers a much fuller portrait of the Virgin. No wonder she is anxious about the poem’s reception, since she not only follows a contested source but embellishes it with even more detail. Christ calls Mary “virgo pollens” and “genetrix cara,” “virgin powerful” and “mother dear,” a major departure from the orthodox gospels, where Christ all but dismisses her from his life. Of course, she exists as a vehicle for the incarnation, and therefore Hrotsvit’s account of her life, like any other, generally focuses on Christ, but his early childhood miracles are performed in close connection with Mary. She is always in the picture holding him, caressing him as any mother might, and she shares in his glory afterwards. For example, when Christ has subdued wild beasts that have surrounded the small group: “In mute silence they paid tribute to Him, joyfully surrounding the illustrious Virgin.”8 The posturing here is striking in contrast to that of Hrotsvit’s source text, where Mary and Joseph are treated as a couple and Christ is always at the center: “Lions and panthers adored Him likewise, and accompanied them in the desert. Wherever Mary went with Joseph, they preceded them, showing them the way, and bowing their heads they adored Him.”9 In Pseudo-Matthew, Mary is afraid and the Christ-child soothes her: “The infant Jesus looked into her face with joyful aspect and said: ‘Do not be afraid, mother; for they come rushing not to do you harm, but to pay homage. And with these words he cut out fear from their hearts.’ ”10 He addresses Mary, but the narrator shifts focus to include all by the end of the passage. In Hrotsvit’s version, Mary is also frightened, but the narrator keeps her at the center and Christ’s reassurance, directed only at her, reaffirms her power:

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Reform and Resistance When Jesus beheld His mother frightened at such an unusual spectacle, He regarded her [with a smile] and is said to have spoken to this effect: “Do not, I pray thee, Virgin powerful and Mother dear, humanlike be terrified at the novelty of this touching sight. These beasts have come for the sole purpose of rendering homage and not because they wish to harm, nor are they on the other hand able to do so.” These words dispelled the fears from her anguished soul.11

Later, when in Mary’s arms Christ destroys the idols at the pagan temple, the ruler submits, saying: “It remains therefore that we prostrate ourselves before Him in the manner of our gods and worship the Eternal King with devout hearts.”12 He bows not only to Christ but also to Mary: “When he had said this, he prostrated his entire body upon the earth and cowered low before the feet of the Holy Mary, pleading with loyal heart for grace from the Boy whom the Mother was happily pressing to her loving heart.”13 Once again, Hrotsvit’s positioning of her characters poses a telling contrast to her source material. Mary occupies the center, acting as any proud mother would, while Joseph remains far on the periphery. The Pseudo-Matthew does not show pagans prostrating themselves at all, let alone before Mary. As in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Mary’s word is also given greater weight than it is in orthodox sources. Twice Joseph snaps at her impatiently, and each time he is proven to be both ignorant and inappropriate. The first time, upon entering Bethlehem, Mary sees two men whom Joseph cannot: “When she told this vision to [little old Joseph] she heard from him these words ‘Keep thy place on that beast of burden, and do not [I beg] say such meaningless words.’ ”14 Joseph’s words do not come to the audience directly in Hrotsvit’s narrative; his words are filtered through Mary (“audivit ab illo”), a strategy that positions the reader in sympathy with Mary. A youth approaches then to explain the mysterious vision and also to defend Mary’s word: “ ‘Why dost thou say that Mary has spoken untrue words, being indignant because she alone discerns the secret?’ ”15 In Pseudo-Matthew, the angel questions Joseph, but does not venture an explanation for Joseph’s behavior.16 Hrotsvit provides insight into Joseph’s psyche, revealing his understandable jealousy at not being privy to divine information, especially since he has been appointed her guardian.


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Joseph snaps at Mary again, when, suffering from the heat, she lies in the shade of a palm and wishes for some fruit: To her the old man Joseph, just in the observance of the law, being somewhat vexed, made response: “I marvel Mary, that thou dost wish to speak thus, since thou dost see that the branches of the great tree touch the clouds and strike even the very stars of the highest heaven. . . . Thus spoke the venerable man as though despairing that Christ who was present could do all things, even though concealed in human form.17 He continues with his own wish for water. Then the boy, “reclining on the cherished bosom of His sweet Mother,”18 fulfilled both wishes. Hrotsvit follows her source fairly closely here, but again provides additional insight, this time through the narrator, into Joseph’s psyche. In the source text, Joseph simply speaks; in Hrotsvit’s, he speaks impatiently in anger. Once again, Joseph is proven ignorant. He observes the old law, whereas Mary is able to see beyond that, having been initiated into the new. And once again Mary is in the center of the miracle, closely connected with the powerful Christ-child. Hrotsvit’s Maria is not Mariological, but it is Mariocentric. Writing for a different end than ecclesiastical reform, Hrotsvit gives Mary more realistic proportions, constructing her as a subject rather than as a sign. Christ looms large as always, but Mary is in the spotlight with him. To downplay Christ or to give Mary more autonomy would have been heretical. Hrotsvit is able to create a space for Mary within the less restrictive matrix imposed by the Church east of the Rhine, although she tests the boundaries in doing so, as she is well aware. Hrotsvit’s revisionist enterprise continues to challenge existing structures of power and gender most forcefully in her other hagiographical narratives, both narrative and dramatic. Because the characters are not icons like the Blessed Virgin Mary, they more easily extend to individual identification within the cosmological order. Her legends and dramas do not merely portray the struggles of Christian against pagan and virtue over vice, although traditional readings have been limited to those issues. As Christian triumphs over pagan, and virtue over vice, issues of virginity, rape, female objectification, and female solidarity come to the fore.

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Virginity is, for Hrotsvit and for the Church, the highest state of being, for men as well as for women, with chastity a close second. The orthodox view, however, maintains that virginity is more necessary in women, since only by repressing their sexuality can they become like men and therefore truly honorable. For men, virginity is considered a passive state that is praised together with other more active accomplishments. For women, however, while still considered, generally speaking, a passive state, virginity is also the highest achievement and therefore supersedes and overshadows all other accomplishments. To Hrotsvit, as Elizabeth Petroff observes, female sexuality is neither evil nor repulsive, chastity is as important for men as for women, and sexuality is not denied, but rather sublimated. To illustrate, Petroff traces the similarities between the male virgin-martyr Pelagius and Agnes, noting the heightened sensuality of these two exemplary virgins: “Compared with many saints, Agnes and Pelagius live a remarkably sensual existence; virginity is not a negation of erotic desire, but a creative sublimation of it” (“Eloquence and Heroic Virginity” 93). Female bodies are not polluted, nor are women inherently inferior, physically or intellectually (although they are physically weaker than men, but that is not consequential for Hrotsvit). Moreover, virginity is not a state of being in itself, but an emblem of active and willful devotion. Thus, her virginal heroes, male and female, are not simply vessels awaiting fulfillment; through their piety they earn divine grace and participate actively in their own destinies. As heroes, they are characterized by beauty, eloquence, and power. Rather than being protected by God and saved by some miracle alone, they are active participants in their own defense and earn the right to carry the martyr’s palm and wear the crown of virginity. In her verse legend of Agnes, Hrotsvit departs radically from her Latin sources, as Petroff demonstrates (ibid. 83–96). Taking license with her source, Hrotsvit does not make Agnes prostrate herself in front of the angel, naked except for the covering of her miraculously lengthened hair—an image that emphasizes her passivity in the Pseudo-Ambrosian text and is charged with erotic suggestion. Instead, Hrotsvit’s angel meets Agnes at the door of the brothel and hands her a robe. In Pseudo-Ambrose, Agnes, donning the angelic robe, is encapsulated in light, which her suitor’s friends dare not enter, but which Sophronius penetrates, dying immediately. Hrotsvit, however, circumscribes the suggestive penetration of the circle of light; Sophronius dies upon approaching, but never touches or enters that circle. Agnes’s speech is also much longer and more forceful as


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she recalls the Song of Songs to describe her marriage to Christ, thereby sublimating female sexuality rather than denying or repressing it. Agnes’s martyrdom demonstrates perhaps most fully the strength of the virgin, not because of the length or extent of the torture, but because of the means of torture and execution. First she is set on fire and, of course, protected, as Hrotsvit explains: But the body of the chaste virgin which required no punishment because of any defilement, since the passion of carnal love had not enkindled it, the fire did not molest, nor were the flames able to touch it. Finally by power divine the flames were separated and yielded to the virgin’s prayers a more ample fulfillment than she had asked. For the flames raging with excessive heat, broke forth and destroyed at once the executioners first of all. Then they licked at the unbelieving by-standers and speedily laid low many ranks of them. But alone proof against the flames the saintly virgin stood at ease amid the crackling tongues of fire.19 The fire gives proof of her unwavering virginity as well as her power, since the flames yield to her prayers. She is not merely a passive martyr sheltered by God, but an active participant in her own fate. When she prays once more, asking for death, the enraged pagan immediately kills her, unwittingly answering her prayers: Nor did he allow the sacred maid to survive after this, through whom such great prodigies had been wrought; but he plunged his sword into the tender throat of the illustrious martyr and pierced it through ravenously. And on the other hand, unwittingly indeed, he succeeded in conferring upon her, whom he desired, though unprovoked, to harm, a great boon, as he sent to heaven the soul he thus wickedly snatched from the world.20 Not only are the miracles wrought “through her,” so that she is considered a major threat to pagan beliefs, but the manner of execution is also significant—the sword through the throat. She is not beheaded, as many indomitable virgins are in the end; her death is much more specific to her power in life, the aspect that most threatens the pagan, patriarchal order—her voice. Finally, the image is significant in that it shows how

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little physical strength has to do with supremacy. As is typical of passios, brute force not only fails its purpose, but even serves that of the opponent, thus proving brute force to be doubly weak. Atypically, however, Hrotsvit makes the link explicit in the last two lines of the passage. In Hrotsvit’s texts, beauty is a heroic quality that can be read as a mark of subjectivity. As in Augustine, beauty reflects the character or potential of the soul. Augustine, however, views the female body as inherently inferior to the male form, and the female soul, by extension, is therefore less perfect.21 Hrotsvit departs from Augustine’s reading of the body in significant ways. She revises the dualistic/hierarchical relation of soul to body in the opening of The Conversion of the Whore Thais and avoids gendering body and soul. Since all individuals are created in the image of God, and all have the gift of free will and the intellectual capacity to make choices, women have the same potential for spiritual perfection as men. Moreover, instead of awaiting Augustine’s dream of a paradisiacal afterlife where a woman’s body does not excite lust, a vision that assumes the inherent seductiveness of the female body, Hrotsvit questions the naturalization of the seductive female body and lays the blame on ignorant men who misread heroic female subjects as objects of desire. Thais opens with a dialogue between the hermit Pafnutius and his students, which follows the model of Alcuin’s teaching dialogues. Pafnutius, a male authority, speaks for Hrotsvit as he engages in a dialogue with his students and, by extension, the play’s audience. He tells them that he is distressed because God suffers “from his own creature formed to his own image.”22 And that “creatura” is, importantly, the whore Thais. Not only does the text acknowledge a woman created in the image of God, but a fallen woman at that. Through a divine vision, an ecclesiastical authority recognizes her to be formed fully in the image of God, without qualification, even though she is obviously not attending to the contemplation of God. Here Hrotsvit both draws on and departs from the teachings of Jerome and Augustine. In his lesson, Pafnutius explains that the microcosm, “minor mundus,” is “homo,” the human being, not “vir,” man.23 Expounding on the complex design of the human being, Pafnutius argues that the dichotomy between body and soul is a misleading oversimplification. For just as the macrocosm is composed of four elements that are contrary, but is perfected according to the wish of the creator following a harmonic modulation, so also the human being is


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fitted together not only from these same elements, but from even more contrary parts.24 When asked what could possibly be more contrary, he responds: “Body and soul: because, granting that those elements are contrary, nevertheless they are corporeal; the soul, however, is not mortal, as the body is, nor is the body spiritual, as the soul is.”25 Body and soul are contrary, but they are not gendered. A few passages later he explains that “nothing is contrary to essence [ousia], but she is the receiver of contraries.”26 By that reading, the body, even though it is mortal, is not outside of the essential substance. He then connects the soul/body discussion to music: “just as low and high sounds, joined harmonically, create a certain music, so dissonant elements, harmoniously brought together, create one world.”27 Pafnutius does not subscribe to the allegorical gendering of body and intellect/soul as female and male, respectively, which naturalizes female subordination. Instead, expounding on the complexities of music to explain the interrelationship of body and soul, Hrotsvit, via Pafnutius, challenges rather than promotes the traditional antifeminist dichotomy that equates male with reason and female with sense. Ostensibly accepting the Augustinian duality of body and soul, she also understands that all humans, male and female, are body and soul together, inseparably intertwined, as Pafnutius teaches his students. Instead of denigrating the body or renouncing it as other female religious do, Hrotsvit sublimates it, rereads it, re-presents it as the sign and outward extension of the soul. Hrotsvit may come closest to Elizabeth Grosz’s model of the Möbius strip to demonstrate a more productive relationship between body and mind, in Grosz’s terminology, “which presumes neither their identity nor their radical disjunction, a model which shows that while there are disparate ‘things’ being related, they have the capacity to twist one into the other. This enables the mind/ body relation to avoid the impasses of reductionism, of a narrow causal relation or the retention of the binary divide. It enables the subjectivity to be understood not as the combination of a psychical depth and a corporeal superficiality but as a surface whose inscriptions and rotations in three-dimensional space produce all the effects of depth” (Volatile Bodies 209–10). This we see in Hrotsvit’s heroes, male and female—not a denigration of the body, but an acceptance and even sublimation of it, a reappraisal that in turn revalues the feminine and revises accordingly possibilities for female being.

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The simplicity and rigidity of the traditional view enforce and naturalize a heterosexist, gendered hierarchy in which women are always connected with worldliness and sensuality and are therefore required to submit to male reason and authority. In Butlerian terms, rigidity itself marks instability, the impossibility of control and containment. Hrotsvit’s analysis of a seemingly rigid point of faith, the image of God, defies normative parameters and makes the soul/body distinction more slippery, rearticulating the most basic template for regulating gender and subjectivity in Christian thought. Even God becomes somewhat slippery as she resists the typical anthropomorphic tendency and depicts him not as God the Father, but as a sort of nebulous entity completely lacking even metaphorical materiality. Again, Pafnutius serves as her mouthpiece, describing a cosmological landscape devoid of gender distinction in his closing prayer to God for Thais’s soul: You, who were made by no one, truly are form without matter, whose simple being caused to exist, out of this and that, a human being (which is not that which it is), grant that the diverse parts of this human being bound to be dissolved may happily return to the source of her origin, and there may her soul, enriched from on high, be mixed into the heavenly joys, and may her body be cherished peacefully within the soft bosom of earth, its matter, until, when the dusty ash comes together and when the life-giving breath again enters the limbs restored to life, this same Thais may rise again perfected, as she was, a human being to be placed among the white lambs and to be inducted into the joy of eternity; You, who alone are what you are, may you reign and may you glory through infinite ages of ages.28 Through the voice of male authority, Hrotsvit explicates her own understanding of universal order and opens up possibilities for female subjectivity within that order. She thus disrupts the process of materialization that defines the female as abject other in order more fully to realize and materialize the male subject. Hrotsvit’s disruption of traditional notions of gender and subjectivity is not fully willful, just as the process of materialization is not. That is, Hrotsvit does not operate as some sort of metadiscursive agent who can critique and disrupt the very discourse that shapes her own subjectivity; instead, she is culturally and intellectually


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enabled to expose the stabilities and disjunctions that have always been there, acting against the process of naturalization, because naturalization never fully covers its ground. In Butler’s view, “The paradox of subjectivation (assujetissement) is precisely that the subject who would resist such norms is itself enabled, if not produced, by such norms” (Bodies that Matter 15). Thais herself is not what she seems. She is a prostitute who fancies herself in control of bodies, both hers and those of her clients. For this reason, Thais is described from the outset as “a certain impudent woman.”29 Curiously, however, she is also a devout woman who reserves a private space within her brothel for Christian devotions. Objectifying herself and thereby enslaving the men around her, she nevertheless radiates beauty: “This woman shines forth in marvelous beauty and is soiled with horrible foulness.”30 For Hrotsvit, the logical connection between beauty and spiritual integrity is disrupted in the character of Thais, who does not fit readily into any recognizable category. In other words, she does not meet the audience’s expectations according to the all-too-simple virgin/whore dichotomy. Thais is therefore culturally unintelligible, abject, and her beauty serves as the outer mark of her abjection. The brothel is not the natural place for Thais, but she has chosen quite willingly to become a prostitute and considers herself fully in control and aware of the consequences, as she explains to Pafnutius: “I believe that the merit of each person is weighed on the steel rod of His equity, in proportion as he or she achieves, and that punishment or prize is laid up for each one according to his or her deeds.”31 Pafnutius is, of course, quite shocked at her willfulness, and persuades her to repent, which she does with as much conviction as when she had taken on the life of a prostitute. Thus, beauty is not the seducer here; Thais is. Thinking herself fully in control, Thais has sought to make a living through her body. When she gives up her life of prostitution in favor of a holy life as anchoress, she meets physical resistance among her clients and even has to ask them to stop tearing her clothes. Despite her illusion of control, Thais finds that she is nothing more than a commodity in the marketplace she claimed to run. The burning of all the money she has earned as a prostitute symbolically recasts her outside of the economy where she can exist only as commodity. Thais finally regains control of her body, but in the anchorhold she must now confront it fully, in all its pain, excrement, and ugliness.32 When the reality of the situation strikes her, she is not sure she can endure

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it. Indeed, the abbess tries to dissuade Paphnutius from insisting on this form of penance. As she faces the harsh conditions of the anchorhold and the full reality of her own body, Thais assumes full responsibility for her actions, blaming neither her beauty nor male coercion, and repents for her wayward existence so that at the end she is welcomed among the blessed. As part of her penance, Pafnutius directs her to look inward: “Withdraw into a secret place, in which, reflecting upon yourself, you may be able to bewail the enormity of your offense.”33 Looking inward allows her to fulfill her spiritual potential, which had been revealed by her beauty all along. As a prostitute, she had misunderstood and misused her own beauty, subscribing to the masculinist myth of female objectivity. In Kristevan terms, her isolation forces her to confront the borders of her own body and the fundamental nature of its material existence through the inescapable reality of its various excretions. Paradoxically, as a repentant anchoress, she will reclaim her self and achieve her full spiritual potential through physical abjection. She emerges in the end truly blessed. Significantly, it is a woman who performs for the audience the act of self-realization through self-renunciation, which Foucault calls the “Christian hermeneutics of the self ” (“Technologies” 46). Virginal men as well as women hope for a place in Christ’s bridal chamber, as we see when the devout monk Paul reveals his heavenly vision: I saw in a vision a bed in heaven magnificently spread with white linens, over which four splendid virgins presided and stood as if guarding; and when I beheld the joy of that wonderful brightness, I said to myself: “This glory suits nobody more than my father and lord, Antony.”34 Indeed, all devout Christians aspire to that glory. Here, however, cultural expectations about this vision and Antony’s great reward are overturned, as we see when Paul continues: “That being said, a divine voice thundered, saying: ‘This glory is not, as you hope, reserved for Antony, but for the whore Thais.’ ”35 Significantly, the label of “whore” remains, even after Thais completes her extreme penance, suggesting, perhaps, that a sinner can never be fully exculpated, and that this sinner, in particular, can never erase the mark of her dangerous femininity. It may also, however, provide a useful point of ironic contrast, a rupture in the system. In this reading, the denouement of the play positions Thais, a flawed female, not the likely hermetic male, at the highest level of Christian spiritual


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achievement and makes her a model for the ideal Christian corporate subject. On her is conferred the glorious reward expected for the founding father of the Egyptian desert hermits. Elsewhere in Hrotsvit’s texts, tragic consequences arise when women are defined by physical appearance and objectified. Pagan men err not only in refusing to accept the Christian faith and underestimating the power of the Christian God, but also in underestimating the power and role of women. Mistakenly assessing women in terms of their physical appearance, pagan men misjudge their opponents’ worth at the same time that they expose their own most vulnerable trait—lust. Women do not inspire lust, however; it arises out of the men’s ignorant perception of women as objects of desire. Hrotsvit demonstrates that women are autonomous subjects in their own right. Neither emblematic of God’s power nor the forced object of male lust and power, her heroic virgins demonstrate that they are formidable individuals. Beauty for them is a personal mark—not of God’s grace, but of their strong souls. The connection between physical beauty and lust is checked by the women themselves, in word as well as in deed. The tension between these opposing notions of beauty is presented throughout her works, particularly in her hagiographic texts. Powerful pagans such as Dulcitius, Hadrian, Sophronius, and Calimachus are immediately impressed by the beauty of the virgins they encounter, lose control because of their obsession, become foolish and evil, and ultimately bring calamity on their districts. Upon seeing the virgins placed in his charge, for example, Dulcitius remarks “Wonderful! How beautiful, how lovely, how rare these little girls are!”36 But neither beauty nor chastity is skin deep for Hrotsvit. Whereas beauty reflects spiritual potential, chastity reflects true devotion, the power of personal will, and control over one’s body. Following Augustine,37 Hrotsvit defines chastity as a mental rather than physical state, an outward manifestation of internal will. Thus, while Hrotsvit does not exploit rape in her texts as many other hagiographers do, she acknowledges the threat of rape and subverts it by demonstrating its ineffectiveness. Rape is one site where structures of power and gender are negotiated. As Sue-Ellen Case and Kathryn Gravdal observe, hagiographical texts typically exploit rape to demonstrate supreme patriarchal power.38 While such texts do not explicitly condone rape, they do reenact a troubling gender hierarchy and remind women of their place through the constant threat of male power. In contrast, Hrotsvit’s representation of rape overturns the usual

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hierarchy of gender. Rather than constructing female as victim in a contest of male power, Hrotsvit presents female actors struggling to maintain their subjectivity. They call upon God for strength, but they are neither passive nor powerless in the contest of wills. Agnes, for example, trembles at the threat of rape as she enters the brothel, but she collects herself and echoes Augustine in her defiance of the threat of physical violation, where “the violence of another’s lust cannot take away the chastity which is preserved by unwavering self-control” (Civitatis Dei, tr. O’Meara 28): But the holy virgin, trembling exceedingly at these threats, yet immediately gave this brave response to the prefect: “If thou didst know the true God Whom I worship and Who exerciseth His power without end, through which in gracious manner for the consolation of His servants He confoundeth all the snares of the ancient enemy, thou wouldst not then be willing to pour from thy mouth such words, nor wouldst thou so often place before me frightful terrors. Therefore I, who follow the better faith, that of Christ, know Him and am known by Him; and I hope that under the protection of the right Hand of God, I will never be defiled by sin but will conquer all the allurements of the frail flesh.”39 With the help of God—not by God’s power alone—she intends to conquer the “allurements of the frail flesh”—not her flesh, but her suitor’s—and therefore she remains impervious to rape. Rape turns ridiculous in the Martyrdom of Agape, Chionia, and Hirena when Dulcitius intends to take advantage of the imprisoned virgins. He legally has power over them and from the start defines them as sexual objects. Having placed them under arrest in the pantry, so that he might have easy access to them, he attempts to rape them. Instead, he mistakes the kitchen utensils for the virgins and makes a total fool of himself. This scene provides a striking metaphor for the objectification of women: Hirena: Look, the fool, distracted in his mind, thinks that he is enjoying our embraces. Agape: What is he doing? Hirena: Now he is cuddling the jars in his soft bosom, now he is embracing the frying pans and pots, giving them tender kisses. Chionia: Ridiculous!40


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Reversing the male gaze as the women spy on the deranged man, the metaphor questions rather than supports the objectification of women. It is Dulcitius’s ignorance and stupidity that cause him to confuse women with tools normally associated with women’s work. Other versions of this legend claim that Dulcitius is under a spell, but Hrotsvit lays full responsibility on his own foolishness, and his cries of “witchcraft” fall on deaf ears. Hrotsvit’s dramatic sense heightens the irony of the situation and facilitates the subversion of the rape motif as the gender structure normally replicated in a rape scene is foiled and the virgins occupy the position of voyeur witnessing the vulnerability of the male. They not only escape violation, but also rise to a position of power as Dulcitius becomes the object of their gaze. They judge, accuse, and belittle him, and he emerges humiliated and beaten, duped by his own aggressive desires. As Gravdal notes, “It is the powerful Roman who becomes a dazed ‘rape’ victim in torn clothes covered with grimy soot” (“Plotting Rape” 33). This scene is particularly powerful when we consider its original audience, especially if the play were performed, even in a limited fashion, so that the dramatic effect of the gaze may be felt. As Barbara Gold imagines it: The audience itself, nuns and other canonesses, will also have added a significant element to this interactive process of the redefinition of women. Just as the three virgin martyrs in the Passio ACH (Dulcitius) watch Dulcitius trying to deflower the pots and pans in his deluded state and laugh at him, so the women in Hrotswitha’s audience will be able to control the action and the emotion. The gaze is now theirs; the dramatic perspective has been transferred from male to female, and the women (both inside and outside the drama) are allowed to dominate. (“Hrotsvitha Writes Herself ” 52) Like Agnes, Hirena is eventually confronted with a real threat of rape and she too echoes Augustine: “Better it is that the body be stained by whatever wounds, than that the soul be polluted by idols.”41 Like her spiritual sister Agnes, Hirena proves impervious to rape. Although the audience knows that she will be killed by an arrow, Hirena heroically closes the play uttering words of defiance against her persecutors. Hrotsvit strategically leaves her body intact and gives her the last word. The Resuscitation of Drusiana and Calimachus also explores the problem of female commodification and sexual assault. Although she follows the

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story as presented in the Acts of John, Hrotsvit’s dramatization allows her to engage these issues. At the outset, Calimachus objectifies the noble woman Drusiana when he confides his love for her to his friends: Calimachus: I love! Friends: What? Calimachus: A beautiful thing, an alluring thing.42 He loves a thing, not a person, which appears natural enough to his friends, and perhaps even to the audience. Hrotsvit exposes the ignorance of this assumption, however, in his first encounter with Drusiana: Drusiana:

What law of consanguinity, what agreement of legal custom compels you to be a lover to me? Calimachus: Your beauty. Drusiana: My beauty? Calimachus: Precisely. Drusiana: What is that to you?43

The key question “what is [my beauty] to you?” pervades Hrotsvit’s works and characterizes her revisionist definition of the female body. Near the beginning, Drusiana escapes rape by praying for death. This particular passage troubles some feminist scholars, since it seems to suggest Drusiana’s uncertainty about her ability to withstand Calimachus’s seductive powers if he were to force himself on her. I would argue, however, that what Drusiana says and what the play shows are vastly different. Calimachus threatens that she cannot escape his charms, insisting that he will be so persistent that she will have no choice but to give in. Calimachus also tells her that it is her beauty that has incited his lust and therefore it is her debt of honor to gratify his sexual desires; he makes it clear that he will stop at nothing to get what he wants: “Before God and the faith of human beings! If you do not yield, I shall not rest, I shall not desist, until I encircle you with tight snares.”44 It is not her own temptation she is worried about, therefore; at this point, Drusiana prays to God for death in order to escape the threat of rape: Alas! Lord Jesus Christ, what does the profession of chastity, to which I subjected myself, profit me, when this madman is deceived by my looks? Look upon my fear, Lord, look upon the


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pain I suffer! I don’t know what I must do. If I publicize it, civil discord will arise through me; if I conceal it, I cannot withstand the diabolical snares without you. Command me to die in you, Christ, before I become the ruin of that frail youth.45 Rather than displaying female weakness, this passage shows Drusiana’s confidence in the state of her own soul and also the substantial threat Calimachus poses. She fears not for her soul, but for his, which is, because he is both young and pagan, delicato, “frail” or “fragile.” She does not want to cause a public disturbance; in this age of persecution, a Christian’s accusation against a pagan may well undermine conversionary efforts and result in the persecution of innocents. Understandably, Drusiana does not want to draw undue attention to the Christians in their already precarious situation. She also knows that she is physically too weak to withstand Calimachus’s determined assault. This passage challenges the notion of women’s inherent seductiveness. Like Thais, Drusiana has internalized the masculinist perception of feminine danger. Calimachus has convinced Drusiana that her beauty is the cause of his behavior, and she believes, therefore, that she would be responsible for his downfall. The denouement of the play, however, proves otherwise, when even death does not prevent Calimachus from trying to violate her corpse. Calimachus is quite obviously deranged, and Drusiana is quite obviously exempt from all blame. As Gravdal argues: By staging a rape scene in which the female character is lifeless, Hrotsvitha refutes the axiomatic notion that it is women who tempt men and provoke male lust. Once again, the author separates feminine attractiveness from male concupiscence and finds a narrative plot that makes the male character responsible for his own sexual behavior. Most important, rather than naturalize the passivity of women in the face of male desire, she stages it as horrifying and perverse. (“Plotting Rape” 32) Drusiana’s mistake, if she has made one, is to believe his characterization of her. Hrotsvit here reveals the perversity of the objectification of women by forcing its extreme logical conclusion. In this scene, Hrotsvit also exposes rape as an act of power rather than wild lust, as Calimachus explains his motivation:

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Reform and Resistance Oh, Drusiana, Drusiana, how I have honored you with the desire of my heart, with what sincerity of love internally I have embraced you, and you have always cast aside, denied my wishes! Now it lies within my power to strike you with however many injuries I wish.46

It is not his desire, but her refusal that incites his rage; he attempts here to conquer and possess her in death as he could not in life. Once again, instead of presenting rape in its usual form, Hrotsvit subverts the act and turns rapist into victim: As the two men set out to violate the corpse, Fortunatus cries out, “Horrors! A monstrous snake is assaulting us!”47 A number of words might have been used to designate the snake’s approach, but Hrotsvit chooses “invadit.” The lethal snake assaulting them mirrors their intent, even as it disrupts it. In one act Hrotsvit shows the violence of rape, overturns the structure of power produced in the act, and avenges the wrongful intent. It is in her final play that Hrotsvit’s vision of female solidarity and independence from male domination emerges most completely. The Martyrdom of the Virgins Fides, Spes, and Karitas is a woman-centered story that focuses on female intelligence and strength. Although martyrdom is part of the story, it is not the main focus, as in other saints’ lives. Sapientia, a single mother of three daughters, comes to Alexandria to convert the townswomen to Christianity. The emperor tries to entice them to pagan worship by offering himself to the female family as husband and father. The woman and her daughters refuse, and the girls are consequently martyred. Sapientia, accompanied by some townswomen, carries their bodies out of the town limits for burial and then dies upon their graves, having committed their souls to heaven. Here, Sapientia and her daughters represent a threat to the pagan emperor Hadrian because they are disturbing the peace, upsetting the established order. The emperor’s aide calls them dangerous several times, in fact, because Sapientia “exhorts our citizens to abandon ancient rites and to give themselves up to the Christian religion.”48 The origins of the legend are somewhat difficult to pin down, since the “facts” do not fit historically. For that reason, the legend has been viewed with a great deal of skepticism; even the editors of the entry in the Acta Sanctorum discuss the difficulties of the legend in its varied versions and encourage readers to understand the legend as an allegory. Indeed, the allegorical impulse is quite strong, demonstrating the true


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power of Wisdom and her daughters, Faith, Hope, and Charity, over the false, worldly power of the pagan emperor. As Helen Homeyer points out in her edition, these particular martyrs had long been regarded as personifications of the special gifts of the Holy Spirit.49 Augustine’s De Fide, Spe et Caritate explicitly connects those three virtues to sapientia; his De Trinitate distinguishes between sapientia and scientia and connects the three other virtues, fides, spes, and caritas, to sapientia.50 Hrabanus Maurus mentions the same virtues in connection with levels of wisdom.51 Among the various versions that may have been familiar to Hrotsvit, including two short Carolingian martyrologies, the Greek version seems closest,52 though it is probably not her exact source, since the narrative exists in a twelfth-century manuscript. Nevertheless, the similarities are striking: they follow the same basic plot line; the girls are forceful and vocal, as is their mother; the tortures are the same and related in some detail. There are also interesting distinctions. In Hrotsvit’s version, Sapientia faces the Emperor Hadrian, not just a judge; the ages of the girls differs, probably to better accommodate Hrotsvit’s mathematical segment where Sapientia confounds the Emperor Hadrian; and Hrotsvit never apologizes for or explains away their “womanly souls.” In the Greek narrative, the heroine Sophia comes to the Roman city not to convert people, but to die a martyr. Also, female community, which frames Hrotsvit’s play, is only hinted at toward the end of the narrative. The Greek legend displays powerful female agencies, but they are easily subsumed within the figural level of understanding. Moreover, the author (or scribe) appears uneasy with the dangerous potential for female power lurking at the literal level of the text and takes measures to contain it. The allegorical level is enhanced, for example, as the daughters bolster each other’s resolve for martyrdom, saying, “you know to whom we gave our name and with whose mark we are inscribed. Persist in confession of him continuously to the end, lest we, induced by weakness, waiver. One mother bore us, the same mother nourished us three; we were brought up by one mother, with both corporal and spiritual nourishment. Let there be one end also for us three; let us sisters have a sisterly and familial resolution.”53 Certainly, female solidarity is at work here in this passage. However, the mystical unity sealed with the sign of God (cujus sumus signatae signaculo)

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adumbrates the figural level of reading more than the literal. This holy trio transcends its humanity to demonstrate that wisdom yields faith, hope, and charity, and all work together in continual acknowledgment of Christ. The author also stresses that the girls and their mother have overcome their femininity, demonstrating uncharacteristic strength and bravery. Sophia is praised, in fact, for her lack of femininity: She was, however, a noble mother, not unkindly, not conducting herself with a petty or effeminate spirit, but just as if blushing to do or say anything that would be beneath and unworthy of such a daughter; she was in every way of great and elevated soul, taking this disgrace alone to heart, that she might see the other daughters not follow the example of the first, and that she be in danger of seeming to be the natural mother of only one and not three.54 Here we have a woman unusual in her grace and generosity of spirit, a woman uncharacteristically stoic, a woman with neither “pusillo” nor “effeminato animo.” Allegorical abstraction tends to obscure lived female experience and turns female power into nothing more than a rhetorical construct. Hrotsvit seems to have been aware of that risk and in her dramatic version of the allegory strives for a more balanced union of the “real” heroines and their respective abstractions. At the literal level, Sapientia is a woman, like many of early Christianity, who proved to be devoted and influential in spreading the Gospel. At the same time the idea that wisdom encourages pagans to convert is not lost. Wisdom, both divine and earthly, is represented by and exists in a real woman. When brought before the emperor, Sapientia refuses to worship his pagan gods and admonishes her daughters to do the same. In this way, Faith, Hope, and Charity remain constant to their ideals, each speaking and acting in concert with their abstract role and, at the same time, mirroring the bravery of the early martyrs. The play also dramatizes female intellect at the expense of male. As a digression, Sapientia confounds the Emperor Hadrian (who is famous for his mathematical knowledge) with her mathematical skill—which she anachronistically draws from Boethius—when Hadrian simply asks how old her children are. This scene functions, of course, as a demonstration of the merits of true Christian wisdom in relation to pagan knowledge that would not have been lost on her audience. It is also, however, an


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important image of a learned woman besting a man in his own field, a performative exemplar that would have resonated with her female monastic audience. Hrotsvit and Sapientia both show off their own intellectual prowess in this scene. Female subjectivity is never lost to allegorical signification in this women’s legend, which materializes the female body at the center, to be defined by the marginalized, dematerialized male(s). At the literal level, The Martyrdom of the Virgins Fides, Spes, and Karitas stages a world in which positive male figures are conspicuously absent and strong male figures are portrayed as fools, a characteristic of Hrotsvit’s other female-centered hagiographical plays. In its concrete depictions of typically abstracted personae, the play’s reversal of gender and power expectations extends beyond the world of the play to lived reality. Female solidarity frames Hrotsvit’s adaptation of the legend and emerges as an indomitable force. The emperor and his pagan officials wonder how to deal with a subversive, proselytizing woman who is converting the townswomen so that they abandon their domestic space and marital duties. The men respond to this perceived threat to imperial and familial order with rash, brute force. Emperor Hadrian quickly loses control and performatively reveals his impotence when none of his commands proves effective against these defiant females, and thus he loses his imperial voice. While the pagan men react out of ignorance and fear, Sapientia and her daughters maintain both voice and reason in their pious resolve. The mother and her girls command, demand, defy, and ridicule the imperial authority. Fides even calls him by his name rather than his title. More importantly, these resolute females have the power of foresight: while Hadrian’s threats become increasingly empty, their words become reality. As the plot progresses, the girls remain strong against the tortures and do not even flinch when their bodies are mutilated, while their mother looks on approvingly and even dotingly. At the end, the townswomen help Sapientia bury her children and then they bury her after she utters her last prayer, despite the likely repercussions they will have to endure for supporting her. It is a strong testimony to her impact on their lives and the ancient imperial social structure. The shift in power is not expressed in traditional gendered terms. That is, the pagan men do not become feminized, and therefore weak, nor do the women become strong through masculinity. Instead, fear and ignorance mark the weakness of the pagan men, which is only heightened by desperate shows of tyranny and brutality. In contrast, the femininity

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of the young girls is highlighted, and their small female bodies bear witness to their piety. Bodily excretions, which elsewhere signal abjection, here signify power, as milk instead of blood pours forth from the severed breasts of Fides’s broken body, and Caritas’s lacerated flesh exudes sweet fragrances. Such bodily excretions, Caroline Walker Bynum observes, characterize the paradox in female mystical experience in the Middle Ages. The body, which traditionally is considered feminine and weak, is not denied, but intensified, so that it becomes a mode of knowing God without mediation.55 Hrotsvit dramatizes the ecstasy and sweetness of martyrdom as the women not only exude fragrances and milk instead of blood, but also comment blithely to their mother on their tortures and the effects of those tortures. Their mother, moreover, is rapt with joy rather than overcome with concern, and the emperor grows increasingly frustrated and impotent. The dramatization of the tortures also serves, therefore, to underscore the ineffectiveness of brute male power over small female bodies and to anchor the allegorical figures in physical reality so that they cannot be simply dismissed as abstractions. If these saints are allegorical inventions, in Hrotsvit’s text they nonetheless demonstrate the reality of martyrdom experienced by so many willful women of the early Church. Here, as in the Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena, female community exposes the failure of professed imperial male power, which flails in its impotent tyrannical rage, and the importance of such women to the spread of Christianity. In Hrotsvit’s legend women are not defined as “other,” nor are they simply mediators: they are complete subjects with power over their own bodies. Family is defined in maternal terms, while paternal affection is conspicuously absent or blatantly rejected. There is no mention of the girls’ father, although the reader presumes Sapientia is a widow. Hadrian’s advances to the girls are phrased in terms of paternal kinship, but are rejected each time. Simultaneously the mother–daughter bond is strengthened through each test of will. Female piety, maternal strength and wisdom, and female will together overcome male power and desire. While this vision is most fully realized in The Martyrdom of the Virgins Fides, Spes, and Karitas, Hrotsvit’s attempt to level gender distinctions and redefine power pervades her work. Writing within the orthodox matrix to which she is restricted, Hrotsvit alters existing models for negotiating gender and power. It is tempting, perhaps, to attribute Hrotsvit’s learning to patriarchal sources and credit her seemingly “eccentric” defense of women to her own authorial genius and the inner conflict of an


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intelligent woman functioning in a man’s world. But that would permit a convenient and unjust dismissal of a larger cultural trend. It is perhaps more accurate to view Hrotsvit as a product of cultural flux in the conversionary climate of Ottonian Saxony. Hrotsvit’s preservation of Germanic beliefs of female piety, intelligence, and maternal strength merges with Christian ideals of chastity and piety, creating a space in which she acknowledges and enables female actors. Within this cultural context, her agency and achievement cannot be denied. Her texts produce discursive possibilities that, whether performed or read, give rise to further discursive possibilities for female subjects hitherto culturally unintelligible: beautiful women who are chaste; prostitutes who are spiritualized and inwardly devout and then also become chaste; young girls emboldened to defy worldly male authority; a female preacher who can teach a professed mathematician new tricks. Hrotsvit reiterates patriarchal texts, but finds in them and exploits moments of catachresis, the ruptures that are perpetually reproduced by the very discourses that seek to eliminate them. It is in the disruption of existing ideological formations that productive rematerialization of formerly abjected bodies may occur. The process is an ongoing struggle for cultural intelligibility, a struggle for rearticulation of linkages, as Butler argues, “leaving open the production of new subject-positions, new political signifiers, and new linkages to become the rallying points for politicization” (Bodies 193). Hrotsvit’s female-centered texts disrupt existing linkages by dematerializing the rational male subject and shifting the constitutive outside. They redefine and reposition masculinity in relation to femininity. The strong, rational male is no longer at the center unless he is also pious and domesticated. Pagan men, rather than sensual women, are abjected, forming the constitutive outside. Ruling men stand in the center together with ruling women, as in the Gesta Ottonis and the Primordia, the Maria and Ascensio, promoting male–female Christian partnership. Other texts, such as the Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena and The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Fides, Spes, and Karitas, rematerialize the abject female at the center without any clear indication of a male counterpart. The structural symmetry of legends and plays rectifies the imbalance, but, taken individually, particularly when performed, Hrotsvit’s dramas become especially powerful sites for radical rearticulation and rematerialization of female subjectivity at the center.


Conclusion The cultural circumstances that produced Hrotsvit of Gandersheim were not so different from those obtaining in late Anglo-Saxon England. She, like her English cousins, owed much to the labors of the Carolingian renewal and reform movements under Charlemagne and his successors, particularly Louis the Pious. Hrotsvit’s achievements, therefore, point back to an earlier time and suggest the promise that early Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia held for its female intelligentsia. For more than three centuries, three different Germanic regions grappled with distinct stages of conversion and reform and with different stages of cultural amalgamation out of which various possibilities for female subject formation emerge. Even further back, the discourse of early Christianity provided women with a space in which to construct themselves, albeit to some extent in a masculinist mode as ancillary or supplementary subjects, since the same ecclesiastical authorities that advocated female subjugation and naturalized female objectification also relied on and promoted female agency in promulgating the faith. Women’s roles and possibilities for female subject formation were therefore complex from the earliest years of the Church in its Mediterranean environment. Conversionary dynamics northward and westward continued to allow autonomous female subjects to emerge until the Church was well established. At that time, antifeminist attitudes embedded in Christian ideology resurfaced and served as a basis for the restriction of women’s public roles and female autonomy. Even in the heyday of the Carolingian renaissance, however, with the reestablishment of the Christian Roman empire in the West under Charlemagne (800 c.e.), contesting voices could be discerned among the ecclesiastical elite. Alcuin’s more egalitarian yet still ecclesiastically tenable views enabled rather than restricted independent modes of female piety and cultivated a space in which strong female talents and subjectivities could emerge. 167

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Such tolerance among Church authorities was short-lived, however. The emphasis on masculine subject positions and especially on an idealized notion of a corporate Christian subject that characterizes the later Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon reform movements would eventually erase female subject possibilities from the dominant discourse of the Church in those regions, reflecting the material reality of greatly reduced roles for women in the Church. This trend is especially apparent in later Anglo-Saxon England, where insularity seems to have ensured ecclesiastical dominance under tighter bishopric control. Although women continued to hold positions of power in late Anglo-Saxon England, the control of literacy and literary activity by an exclusively male ecclesiastical elite institutes a gradual reshaping of the female subject as adjunct and/or abject. Women no doubt continued to find alternative modes of devotion and, we can only guess, continued to construct themselves otherwise. Those women, though, remain untraceable. Although medieval women would not recover the degree of autonomy lost to them anytime soon, either in England or on the continent, reform rigor in Francia and Saxony was ultimately unsustainable and gave way to new female subject possibilities in the Saxon regions. Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, one product of those cultural circumstances, managed to articulate female subject possibilities within the terms of dominant ecclesiastical discourse by exploiting the richness of the discourse and the ruptures necessarily produced therein. She seems not to have been opposed to the Cluniac and Gorze reforms current in her own time, but rather recasts aspects of reform that suit her vision of female/ male partnership in piety. In her dramas and narratives, Hrotsvit creates a specular economy in which women emerge as subjects independent of and yet active with their male counterparts. Hrotsvit’s tremendous achievement attests to the presence of contesting voices within or just below the surface of the dominant, male-centered ideology. The peculiar cultural circumstances obtaining in Ottonian Saxony, which continued to revere women as guardians of piety at the same time that they embraced Christian traditions and ideals, allowed Hrotsvit to participate in the Ottonian renaissance and celebrate female power and autonomy. Though female piety was valued for similar reasons in early Anglo-Saxon England, particularly among the royalty, that was no longer the case by the tenth century.1 These regions, though geographically and politically distinct, are intrinsically connected to each other. One period and region either informs

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or hearkens back to another. Alcuin of York, like Boniface before him, introduced English learning and his own cultural attitudes and values to the continent. The Carolingian Church in turn provided the model for ecclesiastical reform in England. The case of Saxony is less clear. Rather than following the lead of the Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon reformers, Ottonian Saxony seems to hearken back to the conversionary fluidity of early Francia and Anglo-Saxon England. And yet important female communities, such as Herford, Essen, and Gandersheim, were founded under the most stringent reforms of Louis the Pious. Perhaps Carolingian reform and late English Christian values had less impact on Ottonian Saxony because the collapse of the Carolingian dynasty and its reforms resulted in a much looser ecclesiastical structure east of the Rhine, as Wemple has argued.2 Women may have been more fully in control of their own communities. And yet the Saxon Church was beginning to institute its own reforms, following the model of Cluny, and Hrotsvit’s texts are consistent with some of the major principles of that reform movement, such as monastic enclosure and the importance of piety to secular power. In her vision of those ideals, however, women are not scripted out, but rather given a role equal to their male counterparts. Positions of leadership and power are only part of the puzzle, therefore. After all, late Anglo-Saxon England boasts examples of strong queens, regnant and dowager alike. Without a deeper cultural acceptance of women as autonomous subjects, such power is ephemeral and recognizes particular women only as an extension of their dynasties. In Saxony, however, Germanic perceptions of women as diviners and guardians of piety seem to have remained strong, since Christianity was still relatively new in much of Saxony. Egalitarian views such as those of Alcuin may therefore have found more welcome reception in the Saxon ecclesiastical structure. In addition, the model for female communities, though instituted during the Carolingian reforms, was established by Theodrada, sister of Gundrada, cousin to Charlemagne, and student of Alcuin, however informally. But, most importantly, the support for women’s education and intellectual pursuits enabled women, as knowledgeable readers, writers, and thinkers, to participate in the production of active female subject positions. Though she was by far the most prolific woman writer of her day, it would be a mistake to consider Hrotsvit unique, as so many have. True, she was particularly well placed to articulate ideas about gender and being circulating in her world. But the knowledges upon which she drew were circulating, and skills for reading against the current were

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evident elsewhere. Scholars are becoming increasingly aware of possibilities of female authorship.3 It was in this context of lively intellectual exchange among men and women alike that Hrotsvit was able not only to script powerful women, but to intervene in conventions of power that restricted female subject formation. She did not simply resist internalizing and naturalizing such conventions; her texts reconfigured the body/soul connection and redefined the imago Dei, which served as part of the rationalization for masculinist power in the Christian belief system. In her texts, however, the possibilities of female self-fashioning emerge most forcefully and provocatively as, both in action and in voice, the female protagonists triumph over their brutish male adversaries. In this way, she offered women other ways to interpellate themselves as autonomous subjects. The landscape of early medieval Germania, insular and continental, with its diverse cultural inheritances during different stages of conversion and reform, forced continual negotiations between the dominant ideology of the Christian Church and the lived experience of women within that domain. I offer here neither clear-cut answers nor easy solutions; it has been my intent only to demonstrate the complexities of female subject production in a fairly limited region of early medieval Germania so that we may consider the possibilities for and recognize the power of reading literary and literate subjects in relation to lived experience. I see in these regions, however rigid and seemingly transparent their ideological framework, multiple subject possibilities competing for intelligibility. The most consciously dogmatic texts, like Ælfric’s homilies or conciliar mandates, attest to the presence and, at times, the threat of those other subject possibilities even as these writings try to silence them. The works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim can be read in support of or in defiance of the dominant hegemony. Indeed, Hrotsvit’s greatest talent may have been an ability to rethink without seeming to do so, and to make her texts not only culturally intelligible, but also culturally important in other ways. Her support of the dominant ruling and belief systems ensured, in other words, some fame for her work and some chance for its survival. One can only wonder what more radical efforts have been destroyed or lost to us because they did not also serve the ruling elite. As in late Anglo-Saxon England, those traces of resistance remain culturally unintelligible.

Notes Notes to Chapter 1 1. Much has been written on women’s status in the cultural landscape of the earliest Church. Many more relevant texts exist than can be cited here. Discussions that consider both the antifeminist temperament of the earliest Church and also modes of female resistance to pervasive antifeminist attitudes include Margaret Miles, Carnal Knowing; Gillian Cloke, This Female Man of God; Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: Women, Sexuality, and the Catholic Church; Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology; Bonnie S. Anderson and Judith P. Zinsser, A History of Their Own; and Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms. 2. 1 Timothy 2:11–12: “mulier in silentio discat cum omni subiectione docere autem mulieri non permitto neque dominari in virum sed esse in silentio.” Biblical citations, unless otherwise noted, are to the Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, ed. Fischer. 3. Galatians 3:28: “non est Iudaeus neque Graecus / non est servus neque liber / non est masculus neque femina / omnes enim vos unum estis in Christo Iesu.” 4. See Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms, for a discussion of powerful and influential women in the early Church, especially 15–20, where she highlights apostolic women, the order of widows, and deaconesses. 5. “Sicut enim non solum veracissima ratio, sed etiam ipsius Apostoli declarat auctoritas, non secundum formam corporis homo factus est ad imaginem Dei, sed secundum rationalem mentem. . . . Sed quia ibi renovantur ad imaginem Dei, ubi sexus nullus est, ibi factus est homo ad imaginem Dei, ubi sexus nullus est, hoc est in spiritu mentis suae. . . . Sed quia sexu corporis distat a viro, rite potuit in ejus corporali velamento figurari pars illa rationis, quae ad temporalia gubernanda deflectitur; ut non maneat imago Dei, nisi ex qua parte mens hominis aeternis rationibus conspiciendis vel consulendis adhaerescit, quam non solum masculos, sed etiam feminas habere manifestum est. (VIII.13. Deflexus ab imagine Dei.) Ergo in eorum mentibus communis natura cognoscitur; in eorum vero corporibus ipsius unius mentis distributio figuratur.” (De Trinitate, Bk. XII, ch. 7, §§12–13, PL 42, cols. 1004–1005; trans. Edmund Hill, §12, 329). Note that Hill observes different chapter breaks. Emphasis added.

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6. “mulierem cum viro suo esse imaginem Dei, ut una imago sit tota illa substantia: cum autem ad adjutorium distribuitur, quod ad eam ipsam solam attinet, non est imago Dei; quod autem ad virum solum attinet, imago Dei est, tam plena atque integra, quam in unum conjuncta muliere. Sicut de natura humanae mentis diximus, quia et si tota contempletur veritatem, imago Dei est; et cum ex ea distribuitur aliquid, et quadam intentione derivatur ad actionem rerum temporalium, nihilominus ex qua parte conspectam consulit veritatem, imago Dei est; ex qua vero intenditur in agenda inferiora, non est imago Dei.” (De Trinitate, XII, ch. 7, §10. PL 42, 1003–1004; trans. Hill 328). 7. “Aut si ad hoc adiutorium gignendi filios non est facta mulier viro, ad quod ergo adiutorium facta est? nondum erat labor, ut adiumento indigeret, et, si opus esset, melius adiutorium masculus fieret. Quanto enim congurentius ad convivendum et conloquendum duo amici pariter quam vir et mulier habitarent?” (De Genesi, Bk. 9, ch. 5, 273). 8. “factus est unus, sed non relictus est solus” (De Civitate Dei, Bk. 12, ch. 27; PL 41, col. 376; trans. Bettenson, ch. 28, 508, with slight emendation). 9. “unum ac singulum creavit, non utique solum sine humana societate deserendum, sed ut eo modo vehementius ei commendaretur ipsius societatis unitas vinculumque concordiae, si non tantum inter se naturae similitudine, verum etiam cognationis affectu homines necterentur; quando nec ipsam quidem feminam copulandam viro, sicut ipsum creare illi placuit, sed ex ipso, ut omne ex homine uno diffunderetur genus humanum” (Bk. XII, ch. 21; PL 41, col. 372; trans. Bettenson (ch. 22) 502–503). 10. “Sunt vero quaedam ita posita in corpore, ut tantummodo decorem habeant, non et usum: sicut habet pectus virile mamillas, sicut facies barbam, quam non esse munimento, sed virili ornamento, indicant purae facies feminarum, quas utique infirmiores muniri tutius conveniret” (Bk. 22, ch. 24; PL 41, col. 791; trans. Bettenson 1074). 11. “Quod si non id, quod est in mole corporis, sed id, quod in specie, facit corpus esse, quae sententia invictiore ratione adprobatur—tanto enim magis est corpus, quanto speciosius est atque pulchrius, tantoque minus est, quanto foedius ac deformius, quae defectio non praecisione molis, de qua iam satis acatum est, sed speciei privatione contingit” (De Immortalitate Animae VIII.13; ed. and trans. G. Watson 144–45). 12. Jo Ann Kay McNamara notes this phenomenon as well in Sisters in Arms (13). 13. Arianism challenged the divinity of Christ and was condemned as a heresy by a Council held at Alexandria and also at the Council of Nicaea in 325. Pelagianism challenged the notion of grace, placing greater responsibility for salvation on the individual. It was less completely eradicated, remaining influential in the British Isles and also in Gaul long after it was declared a heresy. Though Pelagius and his supporter Celestius were initially cleared of Orosius’s charges of heresy by a diocesan synod at Jerusalem and a provincial synod held at Diospolis in 415, the bishops of the African Church (Augustine among them) insisted on their excommunication by Pope Innocent I in 416 (Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church). 14. De Origine et Situ Germanorum, hereafter simply called Germania. Tacitus’s “eyewitness” account provides useful evidence, but must also be ac-

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cepted with caution since it is not only subject to the pitfalls of interpretation and cultural misunderstanding but Tacitus’s own political agenda as well. I use it here to provide a cultural backdrop to understanding aspects of later Germanic cultures, particularly in pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon England. M. J. Toswell cautions that Tacitus is especially untrustworthy in his statements about Germanic women, since such statements are always ultimately about Roman women (see her “Tacitus, Old English Heroic Poetry, and Ethnographic Preconceptions”). In contrast, Dagmar Beate Schneider remarks: “Since Hild and Aelfflaed provide such convincing proof for the second half of Tacitus’ statement, I do not see any reason to dispose of the first half too quickly, especially as so many royal women became abbesses and their communities played such an important role in the preservation of the memory of their families” (“Anglo-Saxon Women in the Religious Life” 36). 15. “ne se mulier extra virtutum cogitationes extraque bellorum casus putet, ipsis incipientis matrimonii auspiciis admonetur venire se laborum periculorumque sociam, idem in pace, idem in proelio passuram ausuramque: hoc iuncti boves, hoc paratus equus, hoc data arma denuntiant” (Germania 18.4). 16. “inesse quin etiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant, nec aut consilia earum aspernantur aut responsa neglegunt” (Germania 8.2). 17. “vidimus sub divo Vespasiano Veledam diu apud plerosque numinis loco habitam; sed et olim Auriniam et complures alias venerati sunt, non adulatione nec tamquam facerent deas” (Germania 8.3, 73). In his note to this passage, Anderson offers examples of other Germanic female seers renowned in distant lands: “The prophetesses of the Cimbri are mentioned by Strabo; Vitellius had one belonging to the Chatti, cui velut oraculo acquiescebat; one named Ganna, a successor of Veleda, visited Domitian; and an Egyptian ostrakon of the second century a.d. mentions a “Sibyl” named Walburg, belonging to the Semnones, in the service of the governor” (Germania 73). 18. Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages: 800–1056, notes that women still held this function in the tenth century (228–29). 19. See Tacitus’s Germania, especially chapters 18 and 19. 20. Women in Frankish Society 11. See also Wemple’s “Consent and Dissent to Sexual Intercourse in Germanic Societies.” 21. Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (chapters 4–8 cover the early Middle Ages), and Jane Tibbets Schulenburg, “The Heroics of Virginity.” Both also acknowledge female agency in overcoming these obstacles in rare cases, but stress the oppressive circumstances for women generally. 22. On ecclesiastic women of the early medieval period in Anglo-Saxon England and on the continent, see especially Clare Lees and Gillian Overing, Double Agents; Jo Ann McNamara and Suzanne Wemple, “The Power of Women through the Family in Medieval Europe, 500–1100”; Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, “Female Sanctity: Public and Private Roles, ca. 500–1100” and “Women’s Monastic

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Communities”; Suzanne Fonay Wemple, Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500–900; Stephanie Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church: Sharing a Common Fate; Jo Ann McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia; Christine Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066; Pauline Stafford, Unification and Conquest and Queens, Concubines and Dowagers; and Barbara Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses and “The Bonifacian Mission and Female Religious in Wessex.” 23. “Igitur sicut desideraverat monasteriis custodiam et regularis disciplinae normam instituit; et monachis quidem Sturmi abbatem praetulit, Leobam vero virginem spiritalem virginum matrem esse decrevit, statuitque ei monasterium in loco qui vocatur Biscofesheim, ubi non parvus ancillarum Dei numerus collectus est, quae ad exemplum beatae magistrae caelestis disciplinae studiis instituebantur et in tantum doctrina eius proficiebant, ut plures ex illis postmodum magistrae fierent aliarum, ita ut aut nulla aut etiam rara in illis regionibus essent monasteria feminarum, quae non discipularum eius magisteria desiderarent” (Rudolf, cap. 11, 126; trans. C. H. Talbot 265–66). See also Stephanie Hollis’s discussion of the Vita in Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church: Sharing a Common Fate (271–300). Hollis is especially useful in sorting out the “fact” from Rudolf ’s fiction and also in contextualizing Leoba and her Vita in the larger scheme of conversion and reform under Carolingian rule. 24. “Interdum etiam ad monasterium Fuldensium monachorum causa orationis venire solebat, quod nec prius nec postea ulli umquam feminarum concedi potuit, quia loco illi, ex quo a monachis habitari coeptus est, femineus negabatur ingressus. Tantum autem huic soli concessus est propter hoc quod sanctus martyr Bonifatius eam senioribus eorum commendavit corpusque illius ibi sepeliendum decrevit” (Rudolf 129; trans. C. H. Talbot 274). 25. “Cuius tamen adventus hoc ordine moderabatur. Relictis enim in vicina cella discipulabus ac pedissequis suis, ipsa cum una ceteris maturiore monasterium diurno tantum tempore intravit, et post orationem completa cum fratribus collatione, noctibus semper ad discipulas [suas–ed.], quas in cella dimiserat, revertebatur” (Rudolf 129–30; trans. C. H. Talbot 274). 26. Boniface’s push for reforms seems to have coincided with the accession of Pope Zacharias in 742; see Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Michael Tangl, beginning with letter 50, in which Boniface greets the new pope and explains the structure of the northern church, and especially letter 56, the acts of the Frankish synods of 742 and 743, which advocates strict adherence to the Benedictine rule and segregation of male and female lay clergy and monastic. Most of Boniface’s correspondence has been translated by Ephraim Emerton, The Letters of Saint Boniface. Though this edition is somewhat dated and omits some of the correspondence with women, it is nonetheless a useful resource. 27. Lul excommunicates the abbess Suitha for allowing two nuns to leave the monastery without his permission and counsel: “dum sacro velamine palleatas feminas .N. et .N. contra statuta canonum et sanctae regulae disciplinam sine licentia

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et consilio meo ad iniuriam Dei eiusque matris beatae Mariae semper virginis, cuius famulatum exhibere debuerunt, in laqueum diaboli propter arrogantiam ac voluptatem laicorum explendam ad perditionem animarum suarum liberas ire permiseras in longinquam regionem. . . . Pro huiusmodi stultitia excommunicatam te esse scias cum omnibus tuis, qui hunc neglegentiae reatum consentiendo perpetraverunt, usque dum digna satisfactione hanc emendetis culpam.” The nuns also are excommunicated (Tangl, Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus ep. 128, 265–66). 28. Christine Fell, Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Suzanne Fonay Wemple, Jo Ann Kay McNamara, and Janet Nelson have all noted the relative freedoms enjoyed by these women despite continuing distrust of female reason, intellect, and sexuality among the ecclesiastical elite. See also Barbara Yorke, “The Bonifacian Mission and Female Religious in Wessex.” Patricia Wallace finds in the correspondence increasing rigidity in relation to women. This no doubt reflects his own increasingly administrative role in the Church and also changing attitudes in the course of the eighth century. As Wallace notes: “In addition to demonstrating women’s participation in the politics of the medieval Church, these letters reflect the changing intellectual situation for religious women during the eighth century; Berhtgyth seems to have been less well educated and her movements more restricted than women of Ecgburg’s generation” (“Feminine Rhetoric” 231). 29. “et quibusdam mulieris insaniunt sensibus.” Tangl suggests as a reading for mulieris sensibus, muliebri errore “womanly error” (Tangl, Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus ep. 59, 116). 30. See, for example, Schulenburg, “Women’s Monastic Communities, 500–1100: Patterns of Expansion and Decline”; Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church: Sharing a Common Fate; and Wemple, Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500–900; Stafford, especially “Queens, Nunneries and Reforming Churchmen” and Queen Emma and Queen Edith; Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses and “Sisters under the Skin?”; and Catherine Cubitt, “Virginity and Misogyny in Tenth- and Eleventh-Century England.” 31. See Clare Lees and Gillian Overing, Double Agents; Marilynn Desmond, “Voice of Exile”; and Alexandra Hennessy Olsen, “Old English Women, Old English Men: A Reconsideration of ‘Minor’ Characters.” 32. See also Alexandra Hennessy Olsen, who discusses the problem of being locked into a generic masculinist scholarly perspective and argues for shifting perspectives in order to reassess two minor yet puzzling poems, Deor and Wulf and Eadwacer, in “Old English Women, Old English Men: A Reconsideration of ‘Minor’ Characters.” It is especially important not to impose our own assumptions of gender construction onto earlier periods, particularly those so different from our own and so much in flux. In her essay “Regardless of Sex,” for example, Carol Clover has argued persuasively that gender in northern Europe of the early Middle Ages is a function of power and is therefore more

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permeable. Similarly, Jo Ann McNamara points to a third gender that includes male and female monastics; she also reads gender through class and kinship ties in the late antique and early medieval periods (“Women and Power through the Family Revisited”). Carol Braun Pasternack, in “Negotiating Gender,” urges careful historical and cultural contextualization when considering gender dynamics, concluding that “the social functions of men and women remained complex and the differentiations of the masculine and the feminine remained under negotiation in relationship to the relative success of the conversion process in each particular social and textual situation” (129). 33. Not to be confused with “interpolation” or with its legal connation, “to question,” Althusser’s notion of interpellation works from the Latin root “pellere” and refers to the interactive process of hailing or calling and the response elicited by that act. 34. I use the term “masculinist” deliberately and consistently throughout this book to signal a presumption of universality and objectivity based solely on the experiences, interests, and perspectives of men and ignoring those of women. I prefer this adjective to “male” or “masculine” in order not to implicate all men in this practice. 35. By “abject” I mean not just its figurative connotation of “miserable” or “wretched”; instead, I adopt the more literal usage of Julia Kristeva, The Powers of Horror, and Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter, drawing on the Latin abjectus: utterly contemptible, undesirable, that which is cast off. 36. Doris Stenton, The English Woman in History, was among the first to argue for an Anglo-Saxon golden age for women. Christine Fell’s landmark study, Women in Anglo-Saxon England, takes her cue and offers an in-depth analysis of historical, ecclesiastical, legal, archaeological, literary, and philological evidence to support that view. 37. Forgetful of Her Sex and elsewhere. See also Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church. Much work has been done recently to enhance our understanding of women’s lived experience in Anglo-Saxon England based on material evidence. Most notably, for the purposes of this discussion, are Sally Crawford, “Anglo-Saxon Women, Furnished Burial, and the Church”; M.J. Enright, “Lady with a Mead-Cup: Ritual, Group Cohesion and Hierarchy in the Germanic Warband”; Carol A. Farr, “Questioning Monuments” and “Worthy Women on the Ruthwell Cross”; and Carol Neuman de Vegvar, “The Architecture of Women’s Monasticism in Archaeology and in Early Insular Texts.” Neuman de Vegvar cautions against simply imposing archeological findings relating to gender and spatiality onto early monastic communities since there is no material evidence to support such suppositions. She does attribute Bede’s descriptions of segregated communities to his own idealization of women’s monasticism and proper gender relations. To illustrate, she notes that “free movement of women among gendered spaces is treated by Bede as exceptional rather than ordinary. More quotidian intra-community movement would have been a practical necessity for abbesses

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and other female monastic officers managing large communities, but Bede does not mention such free traffic” (211). In her analysis of the female figures on the Ruthwell cross within their cultural context, Farr concludes that “the images of women on the Ruthwell cross seem to acknowledge the presence and power of female aristocrats, to include them as a part of the monastic and Christian ideal, but their representation on the cross belongs to the early period of a long process of their subordination” (56). 38. For a lucid and detailed discussion of the background of the poem, see A. N. Doane, The Saxon Genesis. 39. See Suzanne Fonay Wemple, “Monastic Life of Women from the Merovingians to the Ottonians.”

Notes to Chapter 2 1. Again, see Tangl, letter 50. 2. Forgetful of Their Sex 108. See also Schulenburg’s “Women’s Monastic Communities, 500–1100” and “Female Sanctity.” 3. See Schulenburg, “The Heroics of Virginity.” 4. Stephanie Hollis, Jo Ann McNamara, Janet Nelson, Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, and Suzanne Fonay Wemple, for example. 5. Christian notions of ritual purity derive from Leviticus. 6. “Auditum est aliquas abbatissas, contra morem sanctae Dei aecclesiae, benedictiones cum manus inpositione et signaculo sanctae crucis super capita virorum dare, necnon et velare virgines cum benedictione sacerdotali. Quod omnino vobis, sanctissimi patres, in vestris parrochiis interdicendum esse scitote.” Karoli Magni Capitularia 789 Mart. 23 (65). 7. “De monasteriis minutis, ubi nonnanes sine regula sedent, volumus ut in unum locum congregatio fiat regularis, et episcopus praevideat ubi fieri possint; et ut nulla abbatissa foras monasterio exire non praesumat sine nostra iussione, nec sibi subditas facere permittat; et earum claustra sit bene firmata, et nullatenus ibi winileudos scribere vel mittere praesumat.” Capitulare Generalis, A. 789, Item 3 (68). 8. According to DuCange, winileudos (or, in his rendering, winileodes) probably refers to love letters: “Videntur esse epistolae amatoriae, vulgo des poulets, voce conficta ex Saxonico wine, dilectus, charus, et Leodis, et Leuden, homo; quod ex dilectis scribantur, vel ab hac voce vulgo inciperunt, Dilecte, et Dilecta.” Glossarium Mediae et Infirmae Latinitatis (Paris: Librairie des Sciences et des Arts, 1938). 9. “Ut abbatissae nullatenus exeant de monasteriis suis nisi per consensum atque licentiam episcoporum suorum, ipsique episcopi prevideantur eis non negentur quando egredi debent de monasteriis pro utilitate sua. Talesque ipse abbatissae secum assumant, de quibus nullatenus redeuntes recitare praesummant ceteris sanctimonialibus, quia plurima destructio est, sicut in sancta regula continetur.” Statute Rhispacensia et Frisingensia, A. 799, Aug. 20, Item 26 (79).

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10. “Ut sanctimoniales non induantur virilia indumenta, id est rocho vel fanones, nisi tantum feminea vestimenta.” Statuta Rhispacensia et Frisingensia, 799, Aug. 20, Item 27 (79). 11. “contra legem divinam canonicamque institutionem feminas sanctis altaribus se ultro ingerere sacrataque vasa inpudenter contingere et indumenta sacerdotalia praesbyteris administrare et, quod his maius, indecentius ineptiusque est, corpus et sanguinem Domini populis porrigere et alia quaeque . . . exercere. Miranda sane res est, unde hisdem inlicitus in Christiana religione inrepserit usus, ut quod viris saecularibus inlicitum est, feminae, quarum sexui nullatenus competit, aliquando contra fas sibi licitum facere potuerint.” Concilia Parisiense (829), cap. 45 (639; trans. Wemple Women in Frankish Society, 167; my clarifications in brackets). 12. See above, pages 2–9. 13. “Feminae missam, sacerdote celebrante, nequam ad altare accedant, sed locis suis stent, et ibi sacerdos earum oblationes Deo oblaturus accipiat. Memores enim esse debent feminae infirmitatis suae at sexus imbecillitatis, et idcirco sancta, quaelibet in ministerio Ecclesiae contingere pertimescant; quae etiam laici viri pertimescere debent, ne Ozae, poenam subeant, qui dum arcam Domini extraordinarie contingere voluit, Domino percutiente interiit” (PL 105, col. 193; trans. McCracken and Cabaniss, “Precepts for the Priests of his Diocese,” 95). 14. “Nulla femina cum presbytero in una domo habitet. Quamvis enim canones matrem, et sororem, et hujuscemodi personas, in quibus nulla sit suspicio cum illo habitare concedant, hoc nos modis omnibus idcirco amputamus; quia in obsequio sive occasione illarum veniunt aliae feminae quae non sunt vel affinitate conjunctae, et eum ad peccandum illiciunt” (PL 105, col. 194; trans. McCracken and Cabaniss, 96). 15. “Rex fuerat sapiens, legum et moderamine iustus. / Femineis captus ni foret his laqueis” (MGH Poetae Latini 495.64–65). 16. “Esto et sollicitus propriae de parte iugalis, / Ne mentem maculet inliciendo tuam!” (Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance, ed. and trans. Godman, 166–67). 17. “Stent Karolus Hludowicque simul, quorum unus ephebus, / Iam vehit alterius os iuvenale decus. / Corpore praevalido quibus est nervosa iuventa, / Corque capax studii, consiliique tenax. / Mente vigent, virtute cluunt, pietate redundant, / Gentis uterque decor, dulcis uterque patri” (ibid. 154–55.71–76). 18. “Et nunc ardentes acies rex flectat ad illos, / Nunc ad virgineum flectat utrimque chorum, / Virgineum ad coetum, quo non est pulchrior alter, / Veste, habitu, specie, corpore, corde, fide: / scilicet ad Bertam et Hrodtrudh, ubi sit quoque Gisla, / Pulchrarum una soror, sit minor ordo trium” (ibid. 154–55.78–82). 19. “Est sociata quibus Leutgardis pulchra virago, / Quae micat ingenio cum pietatis ope. Pulchra satis cultu, sed digno pulchrior actu, / Cum populo et ducibus omnibus una favet. / Larga manu, clemens animo, blandissima verbis, / Prodesse et cunctis, nemini obesse parat. / Quae bene discendi studiis studiosa laborat, / Ingenuasque artes mentis in arce locat” (ibid. 154–55.83–90).

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20. “Prompta sit obsequio soboles gratissima regis, / Utque magis placeat, certet amore pio” (ibid. 154–55.91–92). 21. “Quo residente, suum grata inter basia munus / Dent natae egregiae, det quoque carus amor. / Berta rosas, hrodtrudh violas dat, lilia Gisla, / Nectaris ambrosii praemia quaeque ferat; / Rothaidh poma, Hiltrudth Cereren, Teodrada Liaeum” (ibid. 154–55.95–99). 22. “Quis varia species, sed decor unus inest. / Ista nitet gemmis, auro illa splendet et ostro, haec gemma viridi praenitet, illa rubia. / Fibula componit hanc, illam limbus adornat, / Armillac hanc ornant, hancque monile decet. / Huic ferruginea est, apta huic quoque lutea vestis, / Lacteolum strophium haec vehit, illa rubrum” (ibid. 154–55.100–106). 23. “Dulcibus haec verbis faveat regi, altera risu, / Ista patrem gressu mulceat, illa ioco” (ibid. 154–55.107–108). 24. “Quod si forte soror fuerit sanctissima regis, / Oscula det fratri dulcia, frater ei. / Talia sic placido moderetur gaudia vultu, / ut sponsi aeterni gaudia mente gerat, / Et bene scripturae pandi sibi compita poscat, / Rex illam doceat, quem deus ipse docet” (ibid. 154–57.109–14). 25. Charles was famous for his eagerness to learn and his enthusiasm for educational reform, not for his personal intellectual achievements. Gisla’s intellectual pursuits and abilities have been explored at length by Janet Nelson and will be discussed in the next chapter. On the Scriptorium at Chelles, see especially Bernhard Bischoff, “Die Kölner Nonnenhandschriften und das Skriptorium von Chelles.” 26. In “City Air” and elsewhere, Jo Ann McNamara argues for the fluidity of gender construction and the primacy of class privilege in the construction of gender and identity in early medieval Europe. Before the millenium, McNamara believes, women of the aristocracy could be perceived as more virile than men of lower classes. Such class privilege allows certain women to refuse to be bound by rules of enclosure. Charlemagne’s female relatives certainly fit into this category. Nevertheless, Theodulf ’s texts and Louis’s reform measures demonstrate that even these women were not automatically and fully exempt from such strictures placed on their gender. 27. Angilbert and Bertha would later become lovers, so her mention in this poem is perhaps an early hint of an attraction between them. 28. “Tu quoque sacra deo virgo, soror inclita David, / Carmine perpetuo nostra iam Gisla valeto! / Te, scio, sponsus amat, caelorum gloria Christus, / Nam cui tu soli semper tua membra dicasti” (Poetry of the Carolingian Court, ed. and trans. Godman 114–15.38–41). 29. “Rothrud carmen amat, mentis clarissima virgo, / Virgo decora satis, et moribus inclita virgo. / Curre per albentes campos et collige flores, / Ex veterum pratis pulchram tibi pange coronam!” (ibid. 114–15.43–46).

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30. The engagement lasted about six years, from about 781 to 787, before it was broken off. Historians still cannot agree on who broke the engagement and why. Sources on Charlemagne abound and all cover his Byzantine connections; for a more rounded account, however, see Michael McCormick, “Byzantium and the West, 700–900,” especially pp. 366–67. 31. “Gisela post istas sequitur, candore coruscans, virgineo comitata choro; micat aurea purpura tecta, melocineo fulgescit femina amictu, mollia purpureia rutilant velamina filis, Vox, facies, crines radianti luce coruscant” (“Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa,” MGH. Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini.Vol. 1. Ed. Ernst Dümmler. 372.229–33). The poem may be referring to Charlemagne’s sister, Gisla, though her positioning after Rodtrud and Bertha suggests to me that it is his daughter Gisla. The poem therefore is probably recording a pageant on or after 804, when Charlemagne’s sister may have been ill and therefore unable to attend such festivities. One such occasion is recorded in the Annals of Metz, probably written at Soissons, which relate that, in the year 804, Pope Leo visited Soissons, but Gisla could not attend the ceremonies due to illness. 32. Most notably, Janet Nelson, John Contreni, and Rosamond McKitterick. 33. The essentialist notion that women would only write about women is easily discredited. Hugeburc’s “Life of Willibald” provides just one example of the untenability of that argument. 34. See his “Poetic Hunt: From Saint Martin to Charlemagne’s Heir” for an insightful discussion of the poem, as well as his Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance, especially pp. 22–24. 35. The nature of the source alone demands further analysis, though that is beyond the scope of this discussion. 36. Most notably, the standard, though somewhat dated, resource for Alcuin studies, J. B. Gaskoin, Alcuin: His Life and Work, and M. L. W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe, A.D. 500–900. Beyond these two standard sources, John Marenbon goes on to cite such scholars of medieval philosophy as Etienne Gilson, F. Picavet, M. de Wulf, and F. Copleston. 37. For recent discussions of Alcuin’s influence and role as educator, see Albrecht Diem, “The Emergence of Monastic Schools” and Mayke de Jong, “From Scolastici to Scioli.” 38. “et inveni amariorem morte mulierem, quae laqueus venatorum est, et sagenae cor ejus, vincula sunt manus illius.” Commentaria super Ecclesiasten, PL 100, cols. 697–98. 39. “Non putemus hinc [Ms., hanc—Frobenius] Salomonem de omni genere mulierum protulisse sententiam: quod expertus est loquitur; ideo quippe offendit Deum, quia captus fuit a mulieribus. Et haec secundum litteram. Caeterum secundum intelligentiam spiritalem, haeretica pravitas mulieris nomine designatur, quae mollibus incautos saepe ligat sermonibus, quia panis absconditus et aquae furtivae dulciores insipientibus solent esse.” ibid., col. 698. 40. This reading may seem problematic since women came to be associated with heresy in the high Middle Ages, and in light of the example offered earlier,

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on page 17, where Pope Zachary I declares Aldebert to be raving with female notions or error. Here, however, Alcuin stresses the act of seduction without condemning all women as inherently and insidiously seductive. At this time, heresy is not associated with the female gender specifically. Alcuin is probably thinking of Felix, the Spanish proponent of the adoptionist heresy, a controversy in which Alcuin was a central player. 41. Eccles. 7:28–30: “Ecce hoc inveni, dicit Ecclesiastes, unum et alterum, ut invenirem rationem quam adhuc quaerit anima mea, et non inveni. Virum de mille unum reperi, mulierem ex omnibus non inveni. Solummodo hoc inveni, quod fecerit Deus hominem rectum, et ipse se infinitis miscuerit quaestionibus.” King James, 7:27–29, translates: “Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” 42. “ ‘Sed ex omnibus viris unum inveni perfecte bonum, id est christum. . . . Solus Christus sine omni labe peccati inventus est bonus.’ Millenarius vero numerus pro sanctorum discretione a peccatoribus, qui mulieris nomine designantur, hoc in loco ponitur. Vir igitur a virtute dicitur, et mulier a mollitie. Potest quoque mulier pro carnalibus accipi operibus, et vir, qui a virtute, dicitur, pro rationalis animi excellentia. Sed ne videretur his sermonibus communem humani generis naturam damnare, et Deum auctorem facere mali, dum talium conditor sit qui malum vitare non possunt, argute praecavit et ait, bonos nos scimus a Deo creatos, sed quia libero sumus arbitrio derelicti, vitio nostro ad pejora labi, dum majora quaerimus, et ultra vires nostras varia cogitamus.” Commentaria super Ecclesiasten, PL 100, col. 700. Alcuin dedicates his commentary on Ecclesiastes to his former students: Oniana, Candidus, and Fredegisus (Dümmler, ep. 251, 406–407). All references to Alcuin’s letters, unless otherwise stated, are to Dümmler’s edition. Specific passages are by letter and page numbers; entire letters are referenced only by Dümmler’s letter number. 43. See, for example, letter 122. 44. “Ideo suadeo sanctitati vestrae, ut diligentissime regularem vitam a sanctis patribus vestrae congregationi statutam, custodire studeatis, in omni obedientia castitate et karitate” (Dümmler, ep. 21, 59). Alcuin seems to subscribe to the stereotype of female vanity in a letter to Bishop Higbald and the monks of Lindisfarne: “When he took care to prohibit women from ostentatious things, from costly garments, how much more improper is vanity of dress for men?” [Dum a pompis feminas prohibere curavit, de pretiosis vestimentis, quanto magis viros non decet vanitas vestimentorum . . . ] (Dümmler, ep. 21, 58–59). Either way, it seems monastic men as well as monastic women had difficulty abandoning courtly life. 45. “Placet mihi sepius, tametsi paucis litteris, non tamen parva officia salutationis tuae dirigere germanitati et tuis ingerere cogitationibus ammonitionis meae vel promissionis tuae salutiferas conlationes; quatenus nobilissimum virginitatis decus integro conservare corpore coneris, rememorans gloriosam castitatis mercedem eorum, qui in caelis per magna

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aeterni regis palatia agnum sequuntur, quocumque ierit. Quid hac gloria beatius vel hac beatitudine gloriosus? Ubi naturae victor omnium conditori creaturarum consociabitur” (Dümmler, ep. 36, 78). 46. “Nec virgo, carnis concupiscentiae vinculis libera, avaritiae laqueis constringatur; sed sui ipsius victrix, etiam saeculi ignavae cupiditati non succumbat. Sed sibi misericordiae operibus quasi ramis virentibus in arcem caelestis Hierusalem viam sternat, ubi, laudibus excepta angelicis, magni imperatoris thalamum aeterna introducatur laetitia” (Dümmler, ep. 36, 78). 47. “Sit quoque virginitas elemosinarum largitate fertilis; nec sibi caducas divitiarum gazas avida congreget manu, sed larga mente in membra sui distribuat sponsi. Geminis caritatis scilicet et castitatis pennis ad alta caelorum regna transvolet” (Dümmler, ep. 36, 78). 48. “Nemo miles coronabitur, nisi qui legitime certat. Legitime certare est virginis, ut sit sancta corpore et anima et sit digna deo Christo sponsa” (Dümmler, ep. 300, 458–59). 49. See Schulenburg, “The Heroics of Virginity.” 50. “Quid est, quod vestra tanto tempore tacuit caritas?” (Dümmler, ep. 228, 371). 51. “Tu vero, virgo clarissima et sponsa Deo dignissima, te ipsam in omni castitate custodi corporis et animae; quia iuxta apostolum virgo Dei debet esse corpore casta et anima. Esto ceteris in palatio virginibus totius bonitatis exemplar, ut ex tua discant sancta conversatione se ipsas custodire vel cadentes resurgere” (Dümmler, ep. 241, 386). 52. “Quibus inhaerebat ex latere sexu, soror Gundrada nomine, dispar, sed virtutibus procul dubio compar, fratribus assiduitate praesens, si quidem virgo familiarior regi, nobilium nobilissima, quae inter venereos palatii ardores et iuvenum venustates, etiam inter mulcentia deliciarum et inter omnia libidinis blandimenta, sola meruit (ut credimus) reportare pudicitiae palmam, et potuit (ut dicitur) carnis spurcitias inlaeso calle transire” (Ex Vita Adalhardi 527; trans. Cabaniss, Charlemagne’s Cousins 47). My emendations are indicated by brackets. 53. Here again Alcuin follows Augustine and clashes drastically with Aldhelm. While Aldhelm advocates death before dishonor for virgin women, Augustine is distressed at the number of female religious committing suicide instead of submitting to rape. He urges women to live because the sin is not theirs if they are unwilling. In doing so, he offers a problematic reading of the legendary Lucretia, but nevertheless his point is that sin occurs in the will, not in the body. See De Civitate Dei, Bk.I, ch. 25.

Notes to Chapter 3 1. See Leo Mattei-Cerasoli, “Una Littera Unedita di Alcuini” (Benedictina 2 (1948): 227–30), who attributes the letter to Alcuin. Donald Bullough questions the certain inclusion of this letter among Alcuin’s correspondence. Wallach

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maintains that the authenticity of the letter is uncertain (Alcuin and Charlemagne 274); Bullough finds the style and language very different from those of Alcuin, though some Alcuinian flourishes remain; he links this letter more closely with another Pseudo-Alcuinian letter reworking some of Alcuin’s ideas (Alcuin: Achievement 36-37, n. 79). See also Clavis, p. 351. In either case, the letter attests to women’s continuing participation and interest in liturgical practices during Alcuin’s time. 2. Dhuoda’s handbook has generated interest in the last twenty years or so among scholars interested in questions of gender, education, and lay literacy. In her liber manualis, Dhuoda offers spiritual and practical guidance to her son, who at the age of fifteen was sent by his father, Bernhard of Septimania, to serve at the court of Charles the Bald. The text has been most recently edited and translated by Marcelle Thiebaux, Dhuoda, Handbook for her Warrior Son: Liber Manualis (Cambridge UP, 1998). Much has been written on Dhuoda in recent years. Peter Dronke’s chapter on Dhuoda in Women Writers is a good starting place. Especially relevant to the present discussion is Julia M. H. Smith’s “Gender and Ideology,” which connects Dhuoda’s Manual to perceptions of gender within the ideological framework of the early Middle Ages, particularly in the Carolingian court. 3. At Louis’s accession, his cousins, the children of Bernard, fell into disfavor. Gundrada, because she was an independent woman at court, was forced into the monastic community at St. Croix, Poitiers. Adalhard and Wala found new favor after Benedict of Aniane’s death and, ironically, were enlisted to promote Benedictine reforms together with their sister Theodrada, who had become abbess of Notre Dame at Soissons in 810. Theodrada was instrumental in restructuring the female monastery at Herford under the new monastic regulations proposed by Aniane (decrees of 816). Herford became one of the most important female monasteries and was a training institution for abbesses of such important royal monastic communities as Gandersheim. 4. Walther Suchier collates a sixteenth-century manuscript that shows evidence of an early source with four fragmentary but early manuscripts in his attempt to reconstruct the ur text, Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi. The Altercatio appears on pages 101–10, the Disputatio on pages 112–14. In the first part of that edition William Daly provides a discussion of the texts and the development of the medieval question-and-answer dialogue. For a discussion of Alcuin’s teaching dialogues and their influence in Carolingian education and beyond, see E. Ann Matter, “Alcuin’s Question-and-Answer Texts,” where she argues for Alcuin’s creative educational and theological uses of the form. In relation to the dialogue of Alcuin and Pippin, Matter points out that this particular dialogue is modeled on the genre of collectiones aenigmatum, collections of riddles, and draws especially on the riddles of Symphosius (651–52). 5. “7. Int. Vir quit est?—R. Himago dei et mundus exiguus” (ibid. 118). Suchier suggests “ex ignis” instead of “exiguus,” but I think “exiguus” may refer

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to the humble microcosm of the human male in contrast to the divine majesty of God, in whose image he was formed. 6. “Int. Mulier quit est?—R. Necessitas viri et mater virorum et calamitas insipiencium, serpencium genus” (119). Compare Alcuin’s question and answer relating to Genesis 3:15 in Interrogationes et responsiones in Genesin: “Question 76: What is the seed of woman, or the seed of the serpent? Response: The seed of woman is the whole human race; the seed of the serpent, the commencement of original sin; which two seeds from divine precept ought to bear each other continual hatred, so that we do not do what the devil wishes us to, because he never wishes us to flourish.” [Inter. 76. Quid est semen mulieris, vel [semen] serpentis? Resp. Semen mulieris est totum genus humanum; semen serpentis, originalis peccati primordium; quae duo semina ex praecepto divino continuum inter se odium gerere debent, ut non faciamus quae diabolus vult, quia ille nunquam vult nobis profutura.] (PL 100, col. 524). 7. “Quid est barba? Sexus discretio, honor aetatis” (138). 8. “8. P. Quid est homo?—A. Mancipium mortis, transiens viator, loci hospes. / 19. P. Quid est caput?—A. Culmen corporis. / 20. P. Quid est corpus?—A. Domicilium anime˛. / 27. P. Quid est frons?—A. Imago animi. / 28. P. Quid est amicitia?—A. Aequalitas animorum” (137–43). 9. In rendering animus as mind, I am trying to keep the distinction made in the text between anima, soul, and animus, which can be understood as “soul,” “rational soul,” or “mind.” I think the text distinguishes between levels of consciousness that are difficult to translate. 10. “P. Quid est littera? A. Custos historiae. / P. Quid est verbum? A. Proditor animi. / P. Quis generat verba? A. Lingua. / P. Quid est lingua? A. Flagellum aëris” (137–38). 11. “Professio virorum et vinculum sapiencium” (118). 12. “Ideo necessaria est sanctorum lectio librorum; quatenus in eis quisque intellegat, quid sequi vel quid cavere debeat. Maneat vero in vobis lumen scientiae et per vos aliis luceat ecclesiis, ut vestra laus in ore resonet omnium et vobis in caelis merces maneat aeterna. Unusquisque proprii laboris mercedem accipiet. Pueros adolescentesque diligenter librorum scientiam ad viam Dei docete, ut digni vestri honoris fiant successores, etiam et intercessores pro vobis . . . . Qui non seminat, non metet; et qui non discit, non docet. Et talis locus sine doctoribus aut non aut vix salvus fieri poterit. Magna est elimosina pauperem cibo pascere corporali; sed maior est animam doctrina spiritali satiare esurientem. Sicut pastor providus gregi suo optima praevidere pascua curat, ita doctor bonus suis subiectis perpetuae pascua vitae omni studio procurare debet. Nam multiplicatio gregis gloria est pastoris; et multitudo sapientium sanitas est orbis” (Dümmler, ep. 31, 72–73). 13. “Singuli humilitatem habeant in discendo, et devotionem in docendo, et diligentiam in misericordiae operibus ad pauperes et miseros: nullusque senior sive iunior, saecularis vel monasterialis, vir aut femina sua erubescat confiteri peccata, atque per poenitentiam emendare, quicquid contra Dei voluntatem fecisset” (Dümmler, ep. 280, 438). 14. For a useful discussion of Alcuin and the practice of nicknaming at Charlemagne’s court, see Mary Garrison, “The Social World of Alcuin,” 59–79.

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15. “Saepe familiaritas nominis inmutationem solet facere; sicut ipse Dominus Simonem mutavit in Petrum, et filios Zebedei filios nominavit tonitrui. Quod et iam antiquis vel his novellis diebus probare poteris” (Dümmler, ep. 241, 386). 16. Alcuin wrote his treatise on the Gospel of John for Gisla and Rodtrud and his treatise on the soul, De Ratione Animae, for Gundrada. Dedicatory letters to Gisla and Rodtrud as well as their request to him are edited by Dümmler as 213, 214, and 196, respectively; Alcuin’s dedicatory letter to Gundrada appears as Dümmler 309. His letter to Gundrada outlining the main points of his treatise against adoptionism appears as Dümmler 204. 17. “Una Littera Unedita di Alcuini” 227–30. Mattei-Cerasoli found the letter in an eleventh-century manuscript among numerous extracts of Alcuin’s work. Bullough and Wallach doubt Alcuin’s authorship. See n. 1 above, p. 182. 18. “Your bright cleverness has asked, venerable mother, how this religious practice first came about, namely, that seven times in the light and likewise in the tempest of night, that is, in the middle of the night, praises are sung to almighty God.” [Preclara vestra sollertia sciscitata est, venerabilis mater, qua ratione prius hec fuisset orta religio, ut in luce septies, et in noctis tempestate, hoc est medio noctis, semel omnipotenti Deo laudes canantur] (ibid. 227). 19. “I admit I am unable to relate more about the mystery of this observance. But to the degree that he, from whom we are and are able to do anything, has deigned to grant me the power, has kindly given us the faculty of obeying, we shall venture to expound the reason for this custom, albeit not fully.” [Fateor namque me huius per conctagionis misteria non posse plenius enarrare. Sed prout ille, a quo sumus, et boni aliquid possumus, largiri dignatus fuerit posse, qui pie nobis tribuit [facultatem—Mattei-Cerasoli] obediendi, conamur de his, quamquam non plene, rationem exponere] (ibid. 227). 20. For a useful and insightful discussion of Alcuin’s correspondence with Anglo-Saxon women, see Joanna Story, Carolingian Connections, pp. 181–84. The chapter in which that discussion appears, “Francia and the Mercian Supremacy” (pp. 169–211), also provides an important overview of the context in which those letters were sent and received. 21. “Sit cogitatio tua in praesentia Dei, in sobrietate vitae; et sermo tuus in modestia veritatis; et opera tua in castitatis honestate; ut exemplis tuis adolescentiores erudiantur, seniores congaudeant, omnes aedificentur; ut in palatio regis regularis vitae devotio in tua videatur conversatione; quatenus summi regis pietas in omni te custodiat prosperitate et in bonis operibus usque ad finem vitae perseverantem aeterna te remunerare gloria dignetur” (Dümmler, ep. 62, 105–106). 22. “Sed fraterna caritas in ammonitione spiritali et in solatio saeculari ostendenda est. Sicut enim corpus cibo pascitur, ita anima sacris doctrinis alitur. Ideo utrumque facere debet qui potest et pauperi larga porrigere manu quod indiget et esurientem animam salutifera ammonitione reficere; maxime, qui praesunt aliis et multorum curam habere videntur. Debet studiose vigilare pro singulis animabus, quasi rationem redditurus pro eis in die iudicii. Qui neglenter talentum servat acceptum, poenam patietur suae neglegentiae

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condignam; qui vero multiplicat diligenter pecuniam dominicam, magnam accepturus erit mercedem a domino Deo suo. Scire debent praelati, quod, quanto plus laborant in salute subiectorum suorum, tanto maiorem accepturi erunt gloriam” (Dümmler, ep. 79, 120). 23. The voice of God calling his loyal servants to their reward on Judgment Day. 24. “Ut hanc vocem audire merearis, carissima soror, omni instantia tibi subiectos instrue, verbis ammone, exemplis erudi; quia illorum salus tua est remuneratio. Noli propter hominis terrorem tacere; sed propter Dei amorem loquere, argue, increpa, obsecra. Publice peccantes palam castiga, ut ceteri timorem habeant. Alios in spiritu mansuetudinis ammone, alios in virga pastorali corripe; diligenter considerans, quid cui conveniat. Quidam itaque malannus morbi per dulcia, quidam per amara sanantur pocula. Anus et senes quasi matres et patres honora; iuvenes quasi fratres et sorores dilige; minores aetate quasi filios filiasque erudi; et omnium curam habeto in Christo, ut omnium mercedem habeas a Christo” (Dümmler, ep. 79, 121). 25. “Noli propter hominis terrorem tacere; sed propter Dei amorem loquere, argue, increpa, obsecra.” II Timothy 4:2 reads: “Preach the word . . . reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” [Praedica verbum . . . argue obsecra increpa in omni patientia et doctrina.] 26. “Publice peccantes palam castiga, ut ceteri timorem habeant.” I Timothy 5:20 reads: “Rebuke those who sin in front of everyone so that others may also fear.” [Peccantes coram omnibus argue ut et ceteri timorem habeant.] 27. “Mulier in silentio discat cum omni subiectione / docere autem mulieri non permitto neque dominari in virum sed esse in silentio.” I Timothy 2:11–12. 28. Dümmler 36. 29. See chapter 4 for a discussion of the legend of St. Eugenia. 30. Dümmler 102 31. “Illiusque nomen cum nominibus sororum tuarum per ecclesiasticas cartas scribere iube. Honorabilis tibi est amicitia illius et utilis” (Dümmler, ep. 102, 149). 32. “Misi dilectioni tuae ampullam et patenam ad offerendam in eis domino Deo tuis manibus oblationem. Et dum oculis illa aspicias, dicito: ‘Christe, miserere Alchuini servuli tui.’ Et velim te cotidiana consuetudine usum habere offerendi Deo munus ad altare. Quia apostolica auctoritas hanc constituit consuetudinem, ideo non est omittenda sed diligenter prosequenda” (Dümmler, ep. 102, 149). 33. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 34. “Saluta, obsecro, domnam reginam ex meae parvitatis nomine: scripsissem exhortatorias illi litteras, si illi propter occupationes regis meos apices legere licuisset” (Dümmler, ep. 62, 106); cf. Hollis 217. 35. Dümmler 101, to Ecfrith, where Alcuin tells Ecfrith that he should learn from his mother’s example of piety. Cf. Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church 216. 36. Much has been written about the double monastery in recent decades, particularly in relation to women. See especially Dagmar Beate Schneider, “Die Angelsächsen Doppelklöster.” Barbara Yorke offers a lucid analysis in Nunneries and

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the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses, especially pages 2–4 and 17–36. Schulenburg situates the double monastery in relation to the history of women’s monasticism in the early Middle Ages in her important essay, “Women’s Monastic Communities.” 37. J. L. Nelson, “Perceptions du Pouvoir chez les Historiennes du Haut Moyen Age,” and “Gender and Genre in Women Historians of the Early Middle Ages” in The Frankish World. 38. “Expectavi dilectionis vestrae litteras vel legatum. Sed tertio Gysla, soror domni regis, direxit ad me missos, ut venirem propter aliquas necessitates ad illam. Sed nunc volente Deo iturus ero ad eam visitare; et inde ad Sanctum Lupum. Et ibi maxime spero me manere Septembrium mensem totum” (Dümmler, ep. 153, 248). Letter 165 to Arno relates that Charles even ordered Alcuin to visit Gisla in 799: “My lord the king commanded me to come to the monastery of his most holy sister Gisla at Chelles” [Mandavit mihi quoque domnus rex venire ad Gyslae sanctissimae sororis suae coenobium Cale] (ibid. 267). 39. “I have gratefully received the letters that you have sent to me, giving thanks to God for the exaltation of my most excellent lord David, and for the prosperity of the Pope, and for the honorable delegation from the holy city.” [Litteras vero, quas direxisti mihi, benigne suscepi; gratias Deo agens de exaltatione excellentissimi domini mei David; et de prosperitate apostolici viri; et de legatione honesta sanctae civitatis] (Dümmler, ep. 214, 358). 40. See especially Bernhard Bischoff, “Die kölner Nonnenhandschriften und das Skriptorium von Chelles,” where he makes the first convincing case for female scriptoria and discusses Gisla’s importance. Gisla and Rodtrud do write a letter to Alcuin, in which they ask for help reading Augustine. John J. Contreni calls the letter “artful” and notes that it “betrays their self-proclaimed intellectual limitations” (“Carolingian Biblical Studies” 90). He even uses them as a gauge against which to measure learning in the region more generally. See also Contreni’s discussion, “The Carolingian Renaissance: Education and Literary Culture.” An illustration of both their learning and their participation in the dissemination of texts is found in letter 216, in which Alcuin tells Gisla he has sent one of Bede’s treatises so that she may have it copied for the library at Chelles: “I have sent the treatises you requested, asking that they be returned as soon as they are copied, because they are greatly necessary for their usefulness in reading. The lord Bede, my teacher, composed them simply in language but subtly in sense. For that reason I took care to send the little works to you because I have understood you to desire greatly his writings.” [Tractatus, quos rogastis, direximus; deprecantes, ut quantotius scribantur remittantur, quia nobis valde necessarii sunt propter legentium utilitatem. Quos domnus Baeda, magister noster, sermone simplici sed sensu subtili conposuit. Ideo eius opuscula vobis dirigere curavimus, quia eius maxime dicta vos desiderare intelleximus] (Dümmler, ep. 216, 360). 41. “Lucia vive deo felix, clarissima virgo, / Semper in aeternum, Lucia virgo, vale! / Et mea per versus valeat Mathematica dulces, / Femina verbipotens, tu sine fine vale!” (Poem XII. MGH Poetae I, 237).

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42. According to Latham’s Medieval Latin Word-List. For a comprehensive discussion of the evolution of the term “persona,” see Arno Borst, “The Invention and Fission of the Public Persona” 37–60. Borst demonstrates how the word carried various legal and social connotations and also shows how it came to be used in a derogatory sense in relation to people with empty titles and little integrity. There is no indication throughout Alcuin’s work of this sense. His use of the term in relation to men as well as women seems mostly to convey a respect for position, usually royal. 43. “Dilectissimae in Christo virgini Gislae Alchuinus humilis levita salutem” (Dümmler, ep. 15, 40). 44. “Harum te litterarum sedula reficiat lectio, quia in illis agnoscitur Deus, in illis vitae aeternae gloria adnuntiatur, in illis quid credere, quid sperare, quid amare, vel quid fugere debeamus, ostenditur” (Dümmler, ep. 15, 41). 45. “Viriliter domum aedificate vobis sempiternam in caelis, ut paratam habeatis beatitudinem cum Christo et sanctis eius” (Dümmler, ep. 84, 127). 46. “Subiectamque vobis filiam in omni timore Dei educate, quasi rationem redditurae pro singularum animabus. Qua propter ut filios filiasque cum omni diligentia eos erudite, ut non solum carnale solacium, sed etiam spiritale gaudium habere mereamini” (Dümmler, ep. 32, 73). 47. “Scio sagacitatem animi vestri haec omnia melius intellexisse, quam me scripsisse, et operibus implere quod vix verbis explicare valeo” (Dümmler, ep. 154, 249). 48. “Scire debetis omnibus divinae scripturae paginis merito evangelicam excellere auctoritatem—quia, quod lex et prophetae futurum praenuntiaverunt, hoc redditum atque conpletum in evangelio demonstratur—atque inter ipsos evangeliorum scriptores valde beatum Iohannem in divinorum profunditate mysteriorum eminentiorem esse” (Dümmler, ep. 213, 354; my emphasis). 49. He also alerted her to the copy of the treatise he sent to Charlemagne. 50. “Alcuin n’a pas de comparaison entre l’âme de l’homme et celle de la femme. Il ne rapporte pas la doctrine de l’Ambrosiaster selon laquelle l’homme seul serait à l’image de Dieu, tandis que la femme serait à l’image de l’homme. Il écarte cette doctrine. Nous le voyons dans le fait qu’il adresse à une Dame de la cour son traité sur l’âme humaine sans distinguer entre l’Image graveé en l’homme et celle graveé dans la femme” (La Philosophie de la Personne chez Alcuin 18–19). 51. “L’Image divine n’est pas reçue directement dans le corps. Tertullian et saint Irénée voyaient en l’homme une préfiguration du Christ (Rom. VIII, 29) et considéraient que la formule de la Genèse demandait au corps humain d’annoncer l’Homme-Dieu, que serait le Christ. Alcuin ne prête jamais ce sens à la formule ‘creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem suam.’ Il écarte surtout que Dieu puisse avoir une apparence corporelle; ‘Quis autem dementissimus dixerit corpore nos vel esse, vel futuros esse similes Deo.’ Il condamne l’hérésie anthropomorphiste. Ce n’est donc pas en son corps que l’homme est l’Image de Dieu” (Serralda, La Philosophie de la Personne chez Alcuin 19). See also pages 102–11, for his discussion of the body–soul connection.

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52. “Ergo quattuor quidem animae diligenda sunt, id est quod supra se est et id quod iuxta se est et id quod ipsa est et id quod sub se est. De duobus horum praeceptum in sacris legitur litteris, id est de dilectione Dei et proximi; de sua vero dilectione et carnis suae non sunt praecepta statuta quia duobus prioribus haec duo inesse dinoscuntur; quia qui Deum vel proximum perfecte diligit seipsum neglegere non poterit. Quia haec est animae summa beatitudo eum diligere a quo est et socias suae beatitudinis diligere animas et illis prodesse vel carnis officio vel mentis beneficio ut bona illis optet et quantum valeat faciat” (De Ratione Animae, ed. Curry, 46.5–47.3; trans. 77–78). 53. “Proinde igitur quia melior pars est hominis anima decet eam dominam esse et quasi de sede regalis culminis imperare quid, per quae, vel quando, vel ubi, vel quomodo faciat membra et considerare diligenter quid cui membro imperet faciendum, quid cuique consentiat in desiderio suae naturae; et haec omnia rationabili mentis intuitu oportet eam discernare ne quid indecens fiat in officio suae carnis alicubi” (ibid. 41.2–10; my translation). 54. “Humanae vero animae pulchritudo est et decus sapientiae studium. Non illa quae in terrenis solet occupari negotiis sed illa magis qua Deus colitur et amatur. Cui teipsam studeas, virgo nobilissima, tota mentis intentione mancipare quia in hac est vita omni tranquillitate beatissima, in hac est illius summae trinitatis imago feliciter perfecta” (ibid. 61.4–10; trans. 89). 55. See chapter 1, pages 4–5. 56. “Mirumque quodammodo a scholasticis videri poterit quomodo te plus mihi cognitam esse putare voluisses quam tibi ipsi (unde vivis vel ratione viges nisi in animae substantia?) dum te perraro oculis vidi meis per quos animae naturam tuae cernere non potui” (De Ratione Animae, ed. Curry, 62.21–63.5; my translation).

Notes to Chapter 4 1. See Michel Rouché, “Sacred and Secret,” 520. For a more detailed examination of this idea, see also Kees Samplonius, “From Veleda to the Völva: Aspects of Female Divination in Germanic Europe.” 2. “Us sceamað to secgenne ealle ða sceandlican wiglunga. þe ge dwæs-menn drifað. ðurh deofles lare. oððe on wifunge. oððe on wadunge. oððe on brywlace. oððe gif man hwæs bitt þonne hi hwæt onginnað. oððe him hwæt acenned” (Homilies of Ælfric, ed. and tr. J. C. Pope, EETS o.s. 260, 370.100–104). 3. “Ne sceal se cristena befrinan þa fulan wiccan be his gesundfulnysse. þeah ðe heo secgan cunne sum ðincg þurh deofol. forðan þe hit bið derigendlic. and eall hit bið ættrig þæt him of cymð. and ealle his folgeras forfarað on ende. Sume men synd swa ablende. þæt hi bringað heora lác to earðfæstum stane. and eac to treowum. and to wylspringum. swa swa wiccan tæcað. and nellað under-standan. hu stuntlice hi doð. oððe hu se deada stán. oððe þæt dumbe treow him mæge gehelpan. oððe hæle forgifan þone hi sylfe ne astyriað. of ðære stowe næfre” (ibid. 372.124–374.135).

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4. “Eac sume gewitlease wíf farað to wega gelætum. and teoð heora cild þurh ða eorðan. and swa deofle betæcað hi sylfe. and heora bearn. Sume hi acwellað heora cild ærðam þe hi acennede beon. oððe æfter acennednysse. þæt hi cuðe ne beon. ne heora manfulla forligr ameldod ne wurðe. ac heora yfel is egeslic. and endeleaslic morð. Þær losað þæt cild laðlice hæðen. and seo arleasa modor. butan heo hit æfre gebete. Sume hi wyrcað heora wogerum drencas. oððe sumne wawan. þæt hi hi to wife habbon. Ac þyllice sceandas sceolon siðian to helle. þær hi æfre cwylmiað on þam cwealmbærum fyre and on egeslicum witum. for heora gewitleaste” (ibid. 374.148–61). 5. “Nu cwyð sum wiglere þæt wiccan oft secgað swa swa hit agað mid soðum ðincge. Nu secge we to soðan. þæt se ungesewenlica deofol þe flyhð geond þas woruld. and fela ðincg gesihð geswutelað þæra wiccan hwæt heo secge mannum. þæt þa beon fordone þe ðæne dry-cræft secað” (ibid. 372.108–13). 6. On ritual purity more generally, see the landmark study by Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger. Although she has recently revised her reading of the dietary laws in Leviticus in the latest edition (“Preface to the Routledge Classics Edition” xiii–xvi), her observations on gender and ritual purity remain salient and insightful. In relation to the early Church, some notable discussions are Peter Brown, The Body and Society; Margaret Miles, Carnal Knowing; and Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. 7. Not all scholars believe this letter was actually written by Gregory, since no other record of it exists. Nevertheless, its appearance in Bede’s account of Anglo-Saxon “history” suggests at least some ecclesiastical authorities in the time of Bede, if not before, approached the business of conversion with a calculated tolerance; Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (EH), ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, book I, chapter 27. That this part remains intact in the later Latin manuscripts as well as in the Alfredian translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History suggests lasting significance for the authorities. 8. “Si pregnans mulier debeat baptizari; aut postquam genuerit, post quantum tempus possit ecclesiam intrare; aut etiam, ne morte praeoccupetur quod genuerit, post quot dies hoc liceat sacri baptismatis sacramenta percipere; aut post quantum temporis huic uir suus possit in carnis copulatione coniungi; aut, si menstrua consuetudine tenetur, an ecclesiam intrare ei liceat aut sacrae communionis sacramenta percipere; aut uir suae coniugi permixtus, priusquam lauetur aqua, si ecclesiam possit intrare, uel etiam ad mysterium communionis sacrae accedere. Quae omnia rudi Anglorum genti oportet habere conperta” (EH 1.27, ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, 88–89). 9. “Mulier etenim pregnans cur non debeat baptizari, cum non sit ante omnipotentis Dei oculos culpa aliqua fecunditas carnis?” (ibid. 89). 10. Old Testament purification becomes “churching” in the Catholic Church. Christian purity laws find their source in Leviticus 12, especially verses 2–5, which read, according to the King James translation (with slight emendation in brackets): “If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then

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she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity [menstruation] shall she be unclean. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled. But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, [according to the rites relating to menstrual flux]: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three score and six days.” [mulier si suscepto semine pepererit masculum / inmunda erit septem diebus / iuxta dies separationis menstruae / et die octavo circumcidetur infantulus / ipsa vero triginta tribus diebus manebit in sanguine purificationis suae / omne sanctum non tanget / nec ingredietur sanctuarium donec impleantur dies purificationis eius / sin autem feminam pepererit inmunda erit duabus ebdomadibus / iuxta ritum fluxus menstrui / et sexaginta ac sex diebus manebit in sanguine purificationis suae.] Biblia Sacra Vulgata. 11. “Sanctae autem communionis mysterium in eisdem diebus percipere non debet prohiberi. Si autem ex ueneratione magna percipere non praesumit, laudanda est; sed si perciperit, non iudicanda. Bonarum quippe mentium est, et ibi aliquo modo culpas suas agnoscere ubi culpa non est, quia saepe sine culpa agitur quod uenit ex culpa; unde etiam cum esuriemus, sine culpa comedimus, quibus ex culpa primi hominis factum est ut esuriamus. Menstrua enim consuetudo mulieribus non aliqua culpa est, videlicet quae naturaliter accedit; sed tamen quod natura ipsa ita uitiata est, ut etiam sine uoluntatis studio uideatur esse polluta, ex culpa uenit uitium, in quo se ipsa, qualis per iudicium facta sit, humana natura cognoscat, et homo, qui culpam sponte perpetrauit, reatum culpae portet inuitus. Atque ideo feminae cum semet ipsis considerent, et si in menstrua consuetudine ad sacramentum dominici corporis et sanguinis accedere non praesumant, de sua recta consideratione laudandae sunt; dum uero percipiendo ex religiosae uitae consuetudine eiusdem mysterii amore rapiuntur, reprimendae, sicut praediximus, non sunt” (EH 1.27, ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, 92–95). 12. Henry Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, 249 and 320, note 33. 13. For persuasive readings of the overall impact of ecclesiastical reform on women, see, for example, Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses; Wemple, Women in Frankish Society; and Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church. Other scholars find the impact of the reform movement to be in some ways positive and at the very least ambiguous: for example, M. A. Meyer and Pauline Stafford in their various analyses of late Anglo-Saxon queens and other powerful women. Sara Foot argues for the persistence of alternative modes of female devotion in the late Anglo-Saxon period and for rereading outside the reform texts for those women. 14. Here and below I follow Stafford’s dating analysis of the ordo in the context of late Anglo-Saxon queenship more generally, as presented in Queen Emma and Queen Edith 174–83.

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15. After summarizing changes specifically to the king’s rite, she notes that “[t]he emphasis throughout the king’s and queen’s rites is on the ‘English’, on the rule of the English gens and people (gens Anglica, populu Anglicus), on the Anglo-Saxons (Anglosaxonici), on England (Anglia). This is more emphatically than ever before a consecration of an English king, a King and Queen for the English” (Queen Emma and Queen Edith 177). 16. See chapter 1, pages 19–20. 17. See chapter 1, pages 7–8. 18. For an interesting and insightful discussion on how crosstextuality helps to stabiliize and naturalize the otherwise transgressive form of the transvestite saint topos, see Jonathan Walker, “The Transtextuality of Transvestite Sainthood.” 19. “God ælmihtig hæfð wel gedihtod min earme líf and gefylled minne willan þæt ic moste þone ryne mines lifes werlice ge-endian” (LS II, ed. Skeat, 352.286–87). 20. “Eufrosina cristes bryd . and haligra manna tuddor . ne beo þu forgitende þinre efenþeowa . and þyses mynstres . ac gebide to drihtne for us . þæt hé gedó ús werlice becuman to hælo hyðe . and us to dæ´l -nimende mid him and his halgum” (ibid. 354.313–17). 21. “þa hí ða onfundon þæt heo wæs wif-hades man . þa wuldrodan hí on god se þe on þam wiflican . and tydran hade swilce wundra wyrcað” (ibid. 354.318–20). 22. “wearð awend of wulfe to sceape” (LS I, ed. Skeat, 30.100). 23. “Eugenia þa wunode on þam mynstre mid wærlicum mode . þeah þe heo mæden wære” (ibid. 30.92–93). 24. “seo mæste mæniu . þæs mennisces gebeah . to cristes bigengum . and þá cristenan gegododon . Ða wurdon geædriwode on ðam eahteoðan geare . þá for-lætenan cyrcan . and seo geleaffulnyss weox” (ibid. 40.266–70). 25. “Mæg ge-hyran se ðe wyle be þam halgan mædene . eugenian philyppus dæhter . hú heo ðurh mægðhád mærlice þeah . and þurh martyr-dóm þisne middan-eard ofer-swað” (ibid. 24.1–4). 26. “On ðam ylcan dæge com sum bisceop helenus gehaten . haliges lifes . mid mycelre meniu . án-modlice singende . Uia iustorum recta facta est . et iter sanctorum preparata est . Þæt ís þæra rihtwisra wæg . ís geriht-læced . and þæra halgena siðfæt is gegearcod . Þes bisceop worhta fæla wundra þuruh god . and him wearð geswutelod ón swæfne be þy-sum . and eall þæs mædenes mód him wearð ameldod” (ibid. 28.57–65). 27. “Hé genám hí þá onsundron . and sæde hyre gewislice . hwæt heo man ne wæs . and hwylcere mægþe . and þæt heo þurh mægð-hád mycclum gelicode . þam heofon-lican cyninge . þe heo gecoren hæfde” (ibid. 28.77–30.80). 28. For a useful discussion of ranking according to gender and sexuality, see Frantzen, “Kiss and Tell,” 87 ff., where he follows Bernadette J. Brooten’s reading of an asymmetrical gender hierarchy in the early Christian world to understand how the so-called transvestite saints rank. 29. “Nu sceal gehwa se ðe wile sittan æt godes gereorde. 7 brucan þære gastlican lare. oftredan þæt gærs. 7 oftsittan, þæt is þæt he sceal. þa flæsclican lustas gewyldan,

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7 his lichaman to godes þeowdome symle gebigean; Ðær wæron getealde æt þam gereorde fif þusend wera, for ðan þe ða menn þe to ðan gastlican gereorde belimpað sceolon beon werlice geworhte, Swa swa se apostol cwæð; He cwæð beoð wacole. 7 standað on geleafan. 7 onginnað werlice. 7 beoð gehyrte; þeah gif wifman bið werlice geworht. 7 strang to godes willan, heo bið þonne geteald to ðam werum þe æt godes mysan sittað” (CHI, Dominica in Media Quadragessima, 279.109–17; abbreviations expanded; comma replaces punctus flexus). 30. Stafford has written extensively on women and power in the late AngloSaxon period, greatly enhancing our understanding of women in the context of this period and the reform movement. Most notable are her “Portrayal of Royal Women in England, Mid-Tenth to Mid-Twelfth Centuries,” Queen Emma and Queen Edith, and Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers. Marc Anthony Meyer’s “Women and the Tenth Century English Monastic Reform” is an important essay that provides useful insights into the material circumstances of reform and women’s status in relation to it. 31. “Tanta enim est virtus nominis ejus, ut etiam feminae in timore ejus positae virilem obtineant dignitatem; et neque ei sexus diversitas fide potest inveniri superior, cum beatus Paulus apostolus, magister omnium Christianorum, dicat quod apud Dominum non sit discretio masculi et feminae, omnes enim in Christo unum sumus. Hujus ergo normam animo fervente suscepi, et ex confidentia quam in Christo habui, nolui esse femina, sed virginitatem immaculatam tota animi intentione conservans, virum gessi constanter in Christo. Non enim infrunitam honestatis simulationem assumpsi, ut vir feminam simularem; sed femina viriliter agendo, virum gessi, virginitatem quae in Christo est fortiter amplectendo” (PL 73, col. 614).

Notes to Chapter 5 1. See Mary Clayton’s discussion in “The Birth and Childhood of Mary,” The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England 6–23. 2. For an excellent discussion of Ambrose, Mary, and Ecclesia in relation to the perceived dangers of femininity, see Brown, “Aula Pudoris: Ambrose,” in The Body and Society, 341–65. 3. “Maternal Performance of the Virgin Mary in the Old English Advent.” In this essay, Dockray-Miller suggests an earlier date for the poem and also a reassessment of its possible audience. While other elements of the poem are consonant with a late date, some version of the poem may have circulated earlier. Traces of Mary’s performative power may stem from such a version. In any case, further considerations of possibilities for audience and date may help to broaden our understanding of women’s intellectual culture in Anglo-Saxon England, as well as women’s reception of the figure of Mary. 4. “Hwæt wille we eow swiðor secgan be ðisum symbeldæge. buton þæt maria cristes modor wearð on ðisum dæge of ðisum geswincfullum middanearde genumen up to

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heofenan rice. to hire leofan suna . . . . Gif we mare secgað be ðisum symbeldæge þonne we on ðam halgum bocum rædað þe ðurh godes dihte gesette wæron. ðonne beo we ðam dwollmannum gelice. þe be heora agenum dihte oððe be swefnum fela lease gesetnyssa awriton. ac ða geleaffullan lareowas Augustinus. Hieronimus. Gregorius. and gehwilce oðre þurh heora wisdom hí towurpon” (CHII, Assumptio Sanctae Mariae Virginis, 259.115–25). 5. “And heo him cuðlice ealle þing ymbe cristes menniscnysse gewissode, for þan ðe heo fram frymþe gewislice þurh ðone halgan gast hi ealle geleornode 7 mid agenre gesihðe geseah. þeah ðe þa apostoli þurh ðone ylcan gast ealle þing undergeaton. 7 on ealre soðfæstnysse gelærede wurdon” (CHI, Assumptio Sanctae Mariae Virginis, 431.56–60). 6. “María soðlice heold ealle þas word, arefniende on hyre heortan; Heo nolde widmærsian cristes digelnysse, ac andbidode oð þæt he sylf þa ða he wolde hi geopenade; Heo cuðe godes .æ´. 7 on þæra witegena gesetnysse rædde þæt mæden sceolde god acennan, þa blissode heo miclum þæt heo hit beon moste” (CHI, Nativitas Domini, 197.203–07). 7. “Mæden heo wæs beforan ðære cenninge. and mæden on ðære cenninge. and mæden æfter ðære cenninge” (CHII, De Natale Domini, 5.74–76). 8. “Heo cwæð to ðam engle getimige me æfter þinum worde; þæt is gewurðe hit swa ðu segst þæt ðæs ælmihtigan godes sunu becume on minum innoðe. 7 mennisce edwiste of me genime, 7 to alysednysse middangeardes forðsteppe of me. swa swa brydguma of his brydbedde; þus becom ure hælend on marian innoð” (CHI, Adnuntiatio Sanctae Mariae, 286.148–52). 9. “Hwæt wylle we secgan ymbe Marian gebyrdtide. buton þæt heo wæs gestryned þurh fæder, and ðurh moder. swa swa oðre men. and wæs on ðam dæge acenned þe we cweðað Sexta Idus Septembris; Hire fæder hatte Joachim, and hire moder Anna. eawfæste men on ðære ealdan æ´ . ac we nellað be ðam na swiðor awritan þy læs ðe we on ænigum gedwylde befeallon” (CHII 271.1–6). 10. In “Virginity and Misogyny in Tenth- and Eleventh-Century England,” Catherine Cubitt considers the broader cultural implications of Ælfric’s statements on gender roles, analyzing his texts in the context of the Benedictine reform movement in England. For a lucid and pointed discussion of the treatment of women in Ælfric’s texts, see Elaine Treharne, “The Invisible Woman: Ælfric and his Subject Female.” Many thanks to Professor Treharne for sharing the essay with me prior to publication. A detailed and nuanced discussion of Ælfric’s construction of Æthelthryth can be found in Virginia Blanton, Signs of Devotion, chapter two, where she analyzes Ælfric’s text in relation to the Benedictine reform movement, Æthelwold and his benedictional, and contemporary liturgical texts in which Æthelthryth appears. For a contrasting view of Ælfric’s representation of women and, particularly, his treatment of the female voice, see Stacy Klein, Ruling Women, esp. pages 146-47, where she notes that the Ælfrician corpus offers “numerous very positive depictions of women advisers” (147). My view remains more cynical, believing even Ælfric’s most powerful women to be limited by the constraints of his ideology and his anxiety of the feminine.

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11. A. N. Doane, in his edition of the poem, gives a thorough and, to my mind, wholly convincing account of the poem’s evolution from Old Saxon to Old English. 12. John Evans, “Genesis B and its Background.” 13. Jane Chance, Woman as Hero in Old English Literature; Patricia Belanoff, “The Fall (?) of the Old English Female Poetic Image.” 14. “The Self-Deception of Temptation.” 15. “Female Characterization in Old English Poetry and the Growth of Psychological Realism.” 16. Foucault, Technologies of the Self; Miles, Carnal Knowing; for a discussion of gender and the formation of the Christian subject, see above, chapter 1, pages 2–8. 17. “hwæt, ic þinra ne mæg, / worda ne wisna, wuht oncnawan, / siðes ne sagona. Ic wat hwæt he me self bebead, / nergend user, þa ic hine nehst geseah. / He het me his word wearðian and wel healdan, / læstan his lare.” (Ed. Doane, The Saxon Genesis, 533b–38a) 18. “Satan maðelode, sorgiende spræc, / se ðe helle forð healdan sceolde, / gieman þæs grundes. wæs ær godes engel / hwit on heofne oð hine his hyge forspeon / and his ofermetto ealra swiðost / þæt he ne wolde wereda drihtnes / word wurðian. weoll him on innan / hyge ymb his heortan” (ibid. 347–54a). 19. Particularly insightful discussions of the illustrations include Catherine Karkov, Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England and “The Anglo-Saxon Genesis”; and Dockray-Miller, “Breasts and Babies.” 20. “Þe is gedal witod / lices and sawle,” line 930b–31a, just after Genesis A resumes. Dockray-Miller translates this line differently: “for you is the separation of body and soul appointed” (“Breasts and Babies” 232). The difference rests on the word “witod,” which, following common practice, she translates as “appointed.” I would argue that the context demands something more like “effected,” “realized,” or “made known.” Such a rendering offers greater specificity. The derivation of the word from Old English witan makes such a reading possible, even if common practice dictates otherwise. 21. “[Eve] exists within a system of values [the audience / readership] would profess as its own. Eve is flawed in the world of the audience, a world such an audience cannot and undoubtedly would not condemn. Thus, whether Genesis B was an oral or a literate poem, its portrait of Eve would have evoked a negative perception of both the women in the poetry and the women in its audience’s society” (“The Fall (?) of the Old English Female Poetic Image” 827). 22. “þu meaht hit me witan, wine min adam, / wordum þinum. Hit þe þeah wyrs ne mæg / on þinum hyge hreowan þonne hit me æt heortan deð” (Genesis B in The Saxon Genesis, ed. Doane, ll. 824–26). 23. “lædde he swa mid ligenum and mid listum speon / idese on þæt unriht oð þæt hire on innan ongan / weallan wyrmes geþeaht. hæfde hire wacran hige / metod gemearcod þæt heo hire mod ongan / lætan æfter þam larum” (ibid. 588–92a).

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24. For a cogent discussion of the practice of reading as a male act in Anglo-Saxon England, see Shari Horner’s Discourse of Enclosure. Horner’s work specifically addresses the dangerous circumstances for female monastics in the face of Viking raids, as well as the rule of female monastic enclosure, and offers a nuanced view of female literacy. To read as a woman, in Horner’s view, is to read exclusively at the literal level of the text. In Genesis B, Eve demonstrates this feminine mode of reading, for she is able to discern only the literal message of the demon. The text simultaneously displays a logical outcome of the restricted education and public roles for women and also supports those restrictions by demonstrating innate female weakness and the proper cosmological order in which woman must be subject to God through man. 25. Karkov offers an interesting discussion of Eve’s impressionability as suggested in the illustrations (Text and Picture 110–13). 26. “The element of choice is downgraded, and the act is presented not only as if in compliance with orders from on high, but as a personal good, an opportunity to expand her own being, apart from Adam’s. . . . Now, according to the snake, the woman will be an equal or even a superior to the man, controlling him and dealing directly with God. . . . In the fiction forming itself in Eve’s mind, Adam’s disobedience to God will give way to a combined obedience to God, to herself, and to the tempter all at the same time. Eve is psychologically in the position where she must identify her welfare with what the snake dictates rather than with the word of God as interpreted by Adam” (The Saxon Genesis 144). 27. Ibid. 150. Karkov points out that this false vision is not illustrated for us, whereas other, true visions are depicted elsewhere in this and other early manuscripts (Text and Picture 110 ff.).

Notes to Chapter 6 1. More could be added, but I think the point has been made. For a more detailed account of Hrotsvit’s reception over the centuries, see Eva Cescutti, Hrotsvit und die Männer. 2. For a discussion of the ecclesiastical circumstances obtaining east of the Rhine, see Wemple, “Monastic Life of Women from the Merovingians to the Ottonians.” 3. See chapter 1. See also Pauline Head, “ ‘Integritas’ in Rudolph of Fulda’s Vita Leobae Abbatissae.” 4. Most notably M. R. Sperburg-McQueen, who praises Hrotsvit’s talent, but condemns her work nonetheless as promoting antifeminist and even misogynist values. 5. Gold cites here Sue-Ellen Case’s “Reviewing Hrotsvit,” on page 540, where Case discusses modern reactions to performances of Hrotsvit’s plays.

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6. “The [matron], seeing him and not believing that he could be mortal, was dumbfounded and following the way of womankind fainted away under the sudden compulsion of great fright.” [Quem matrona videns nec mortalem fore credens, / Obstupuit mentis iuxta morem muliebris, / Procumbens subito magno terrore coacta.] Primordia Coenobii Gandeshemensis in “Hrotsvithae Liber Tertius: A Text with Translation, Introduction, and Commentary,” ed. and trans. Sister Mary Bernardine Bergmann, O.S.B., 149–51. 7. “In accordance with the wonted weakness of their womanish hearts, they disdained to live, and longed speedily to die, not willing to place any bounds on their weeping.” [Quae, pro defectu mentis solito muliebris / Vivere spernentes citiusque mori cupientes, / In lacrimando modum voluerunt ponere nullum.] Ibid. 197–98, lines 544–46. 8. “putting aside her womanish weakness and assuming manly courage with prudent heart” [Illaque, mollitiem iam deponens muliebrem / Et sumens vires prudenti corde viriles] (Basilius, lines 168–69, ed. and trans. Sister M. Gonsalva Wiegand, O.S.F.). 9. In a similar vein, Charles Nelson, considering Hrotsvit trapped in the “prisonhouse of language,” has argued that “the very terms of the tradition she is resisting—terms she is forced to use (there are no others)—conspire silently and powerfully toward subverting her efforts to write out the wrongs and write in the rights with respect to women” (“Hrotsvit von Gandersheim: Madwoman in the Abbey” 55). 10. See Dronke, “Hrotsvitha,” esp. pp. 56–57, where he speculates that Hrotsvit spent her early years at court and pursued her court connections even after she joined the community at Gandersheim as a canoness. If Dronke is right, then her writings reveal a certain intimacy with members of the royal family and court, especially the chancellor, later Archbishop Bruno, who may bear the brunt of her criticism of good Catholics enjoying Terence in her preface to the plays. Had she not been on comfortable terms with him, she surely could not have struck so close to home. 11. Eva Cescutti argues, convincingly I think, that Hrotsvit is not the rara avis she was once thought to be; see Hrotsvit und die Männer, especially 11–29, and particularly where she offers a view of the tenth century (24–27) and the example of Hazecha of Quedlinburg as another scholarly woman writer, about whom she asks “Hazecha von Quedlinburg—keine rara avis in Saxonia?” Cescutti exposes the constructedness of later perspectives on gender and the early Saxon kingdom that gave rise to Heinrich Bodo’s famous characterization of Hrotsvit as a “rara avis in Saxonia.” It is a perspective that still has currency, even if it is no longer the dominant view; Cescutti examines the implications of that perspective and offers a more complex vision of the Ottonian era. 12. “sed nec alicui sapientium affectum meae intentionis consulendo praesumsi enucleare, ne prohiberer pro rusticitate. Unde clam cunctis et quasi furtim, nunc in componendis sola desudando, nunc male composita destruendo, satagebam iuxta meum posse . . . aliquem

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tamen conficere textum ex sententiis scripturarum, quas intra aream nostri Gandeshemensis collegeram coenobii” (1. Praefatio, 37.6–38.8; Trans. Dronke 65). Except when noted otherwise, all Latin texts of Hrotsvit’s works are taken from Helen Homeyer’s edition. As will soon become apparent, I rely heavily on Dronke’s reading of the prefaces. Rather than duplicate his arguments here, I point to the most relevant aspects and refer the reader to his chapter on Hrotsvitha in Women Writers of the Middle Ages, especially pages 64–77. 13. “Quamvis etiam metrica modulatio femineae fragilitati difficilis videatur et ardua, solo tamen semper miserentis supernae gratiae auxilio, non propriis viribus, confisa, huius carmina opusculi dactilicis modulis succinere apposui” (1. Praefatio 38.8; Trans. Dronke 65). 14. “Plures inveniuntur catholici, cuius nos penitus expurgare nequimus facti, qui pro cultioris facundia sermonis gentilium vanitatem librorum utilitati praeferunt sacrarum scripturaram. Sunt etiam alii, sacris inhaerentes paginis, qui licet alia gentilium spernant, Terrentii tamen fingmenta [sic] frequentius lectitant, et, dum dulcedine sermonis delectantur, nefandarum notitia rerum maculantur” (I. Praefatio 37.1). 15. “Unde ego, Clamor Validus Gandeshemensis, non recusavi illum imitari dictando, dum alii colunt legendo, quo eodem dictationis genere, quo turpia lascivarum incesta feminarum recitabantur, laudabilis sacrarum castimonia virginum iuxta mei facultatem ingenioli celebraretur” (I. Praefatio 37.3). 16. For a provocative contrast to this view, see Ulrike Wiethaus, “Pulchrum Signum: Sexuality and the Politics of Religion,” who argues for a less idealized reading of Hrotsvit that attends to her royal and ethnical privilege and therefore complicates her often romanticized position as female author. 17. See Dronke, Women Writers 69–70. Interestingly, Essen and Quedlinburg both had copies of Terence’s comedies, as surely did Gandersheim; see Katrinette Bodarwé, Sanctimoniales Litteratae, for manuscript holdings at these important women’s communities. 18. “Ideoque non sum adeo amatrix mei, ut pro vitanda reprehensione Christi, qui in sanctis operatur, virtutem, quocumque ipse dabit posse, cessem praedicare” (II. Praefatio 8). 19. “Quapropter, ne in me donum dei annullaretur ob neglegentiam mei, si qua forte fila vel etiam floccos de panniculis, a veste philosophiae abruptis, evellere quivi, praefato opusculo inserere curavi, quo vilitas meae inscientiae intermixtione nobilioris materiae illustraretur” (“Epistola eiusdem ad quosdam Sapientes huius Libri Fautores” 236.9). 20. “et largitor ingenii tanto amplius in me iure laudaretur, quanto muliebris sensus tardior esse creditur” (“Epistola ad quosdam Sapientes” 236; my emphasis). 21. “Unde non denego praestante gratia creatoris per dynamin me artes scire, quia sum animal capax disciplinae, sed per energian fateor omnino nescire” (ibid. 236). 22. De Trinitate, 12.7.10. See chapter 1, pages 4–5. 23. Hrotsvit’s hearkening back to an earlier tribal order is not easy territory to negotiate, since pre-Christian Germania was also preliterate. Scholars continue to

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debate gender roles and the status of women in pre-Christian Germania. Timothy Reuter sees evidence for women as guardians of piety, faith, and family memory in Ottonian Saxony (Germany in the Early Middle Ages: 800–1056, 228–29). Kees Samplonius discusses ancient Germanic female spirituality in “From Veleda to the Völva”; Lina Eckenstein offers fascinating, though somewhat dated, background on prehistoric Germania, in Woman under Monasticism, especially 1–44. For more recent suggestions of gender roles in pre-Christian Germania, see Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, and, for differing viewpoints, see Wemple, “Consent and Dissent,” and Nelson, “Women and the Word.” 24. See Wilson, Ethics 11. 25. For a perceptive discussion of the political considerations for Hrotsvit, see Jay T. Lees, “Hrotsvit of Gandersheim and the Problem of Royal Succession in the East Frankish Kingdom.” Hrotsvit may have had other motivations as well. As Nelson speculates, “[Women historians] wrote to explain and to assuage particular, and ephemeral, political conjunctures. They did not write ‘official’ histories like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or the Annales regni Francorum. But through these rare works, we feel a peculiarly sharp perception—and perhaps a gender-specific one. For a woman does not become a historian by accident” (Nelson, “Gender and Genre” 197). 26. “Si tamen sanae mentis examen accesserit, quae res recte pensare non nescit, quanto sexus fragilior scientiaque minor, tanto venia erit facilior; praesertim cum si meae praesumptionis, sed vestrum causa iussionis huius stamen opusculi coeperim ordiri” (3 Praefatio 386.9; trans. Bergmann 48 and 50). Interestingly, she imagines her text here as a textile as the use of the word “stamen” suggests. Cf. 1. Praefatio 37.3. 27. “Post haec Henricus, frater regis generosus, / Christi gratiola tactus sub corde secreto, / Secum tractavit summoque dolore revolvit, / Contra iustitiam quicquid perfecerat unquam” (Gesta 419.336–39; trans. Bergmann 90). 28. “Quo rex comperto, victus pietate benigna / Instantisque memor festi cunctis venerandi, / In quo caelicolae pacem mundo cecinere, / Laeti rege suo tenera de virgine nato, / ut pie salvaret mundum merito periturum, / Pro diei tantae pacem portantis honore / Condoluit miserans fratri commissa fatenti / Atque suam pie gratiolam concessit habendam / Illi cum veniae dilecto munere plenae” (ibid. 420.363–71; trans. Bergmann 94). 29. “Insuper et primus, Christi munimine tutus, / Audenter cum subiectae plebis legione / Eiusdem populi patriam petiit scelerosi, / Inpugnans gentem cunctis retro namque / rebellem” (ibid. 421, lines 386–89; trans. Bergmann 96). 30. “Hic quia, prudentis functus valitudine mentis, / his hominum monstris bellis obstans iteratis / Ad nos pergendi calles secluserat omnes” (ibid. 421.383–85; trans. Bergmann 96). 31. “Scilicet et spoliis rerum captis variarum, / Quas sibi communes collegerunt prius hostes / Orbis perplures devastantes regiones, / Uxores procerum soboles rapuit quoque dulces: / Et sic prostratis rediit gaudens inimicis” (ibid. 421, lines 390–94; trans. Bergmann 96).

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32. “Istis sic habitis, properata diecula tristis / Venerat, ingentem nostris augendo dolorem, / In qua praefulgens meritis regina supremis / Aedit praesentis vitae discessit ab horis, / Ipsius imperio genti faciens famulanti / Tristitiam necnon nimium cordis cruciatum / Eius in abscessu; magno quam denique luctu, / Et non inmerito, flevit plebuecula cuncta, / Quam plus maternae fovit pietatis amore, / Quam dominatricis iussis confringeret artis” (ibid. 421, lines 395–404; trans. Bergmann 97–98). 33. Gandersheim lost its immunity in 1007. The community appealed the decision and may have actually used the Primordia to reapply for it, but they were unsuccessful. The final ruling came in 1024. Apparently, the bishop had much to gain from the famous community and was unwilling to let it go; see Thomas Head, “Hrotsvit’s Primordia and the Historical Traditions of Monastic Communities.” 34. Head (“Hrotsvit’s Primordia” 150–51). See also Wemple, “Monastic Life of Women from the Merovingians to the Ottonians,” p. 46, where she suggests that some animosity between Gandersheim and the bishop of Hildesheim was already festering when Hrotsvit was writing her Primordia, around the last decade of the tenth century. 35. For a discussion of the Germanic female seer, see Kees Samplonius, “From Veleda to the Völva.” 36. Both “dominator” and “dominatrix” are rare words in classical as well as medieval Latin. See Eva May Newnan, The Latinity of the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. 37. “Et, ceu prudentis dulcis dilectio matris / Nunc terrore suas prohibet delinquere natas, / Nunc etiam monitis bona velle suadet amicis, / sic haec sancta suas caras instruxit alumnas, / Nunc dominatricis mandando iure potentis, / Nunc etiam matris mulcendo more suavis” (Primordia 466, lines 417–24; trans. Bergmann 98–100). 38. See Newnan, The Latinity of the Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim.

Notes to Chapter 7 1. The titles attached to the plays by their first editor, Conrad Celtis, misleadingly suggest male protagonists often in lieu of the actual female protagonists. Although Celtis’s titles (set in parentheses in the text) have been almost universally adopted since their introduction in 1501, Hrotsvit’s titles, though at times unwieldy, keep the female protagonists in full view and therefore are my preference. 2. See Mary Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England and The Apocryphal Gospels. In the Apocryphal Gospels (23), Clayton discusses the evolution of the Pseudo-Matthew text and other Marian apocrypha, concluding that “the early chapters of pseudo-Matthew were reworked and sanitized even further in the tenth or very early eleventh century to give the even more theo-

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logically acceptable De nativitate Mariae, which in its turn ousted its source to a considerable degree.” Thus, at the same time Hrotsvit was exploring the story of Mary, hoping to supplement Church teachings with it, the text was already suspect and falling out of favor. Also see chapter 4 on Ælfric’s representation of Mary in England at this time. 3. The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, not the Protoevangelium of James, as she states in her title. Both were apparently becoming suspect in her time, however. Relating to Pseudo-Matthew specifically, Clayton’s discussion is useful, even though her main focus centers on Anglo-Saxon England. 4. Not only is it not recognized, parts are clearly viewed as heretical, according to Clayton’s assessment. The most obvious points of danger surround the birth of the Virgin and her Assumption, both of which mimic the mystery of Christ’s incarnation and resurrection, though Hrotsvit deals only with the nativity through the early childhood of Christ and refers only briefly to the Assumption of the Virgin in the companion piece, the Ascensio. She may have been limited more by availability of source materials than by her own inclinations. Mary’s Assumption would have made a nice counterpoint to Christ’s Ascension. 5. “Si autem obicitur, quod quaedam huius operis iuxta quorundam aestimationem sumpta sint ex apocrifis, non est crimen praesumptionis iniquae, sed error ignorantiae, quia, quando huius stamen seriei coeperam ordiri, ignoravi, dubia esse, in quibus disposui laborare” (I. Praefatio, Hrotsvithae Opera, 37.3; trans. Wiegand, “The Non-Dramatic Works” 7). 6. “At ubi recognovi, pessumdare detrectavi, quia, quod videtur falsitas, forsan probabitur esse veritas” (ibid. I. Praefatio 37.4; trans. Wiegand 7). 7. “Haec evangelici demonstrant cuncta libelli, / Nostras et fragiles excedunt denique vires. / His nos transmissis, constant quia cognita cunctis, / Sermonem vobis tantum faciemus ab illis, / Rarius in templo quae creduntur fore dicta” (Maria, Hrotsvithae Opera, 68, lines 538–42; trans. Wiegand 45). 8. “Orantes puerum submissa voce tenellum, / Circa praeclaram gaudentes atque Mariam” (ibid. 75, lines 732–33; trans. Wiegand 55). 9. “Similiter autem et leones et pardi adorabant eum et comitabantur cum eis in deserto. Quocumque ibat Maria cum Ioseph, antecedebant eos ostendentes viam, et inclinantes capita sua adorabant eum” (Pseudo-Matthew, ed. J. Gisel, XIX.1, 453). 10. “In cuius faciem infans Iesus laeto vultu respexit et dixit: Noli timere, mater, non enim ad iniuriam tuam sed ad obsequium tuum venire festinant. Et his dictis amputavit timorem de cordibus eorum” (ibid. XIX.1, 453). 11. “Quam super insolito pavitantem denique signo / Laetius intuitus, fertur sic dicere Christus: / “Non te, virgo, rogo, pollens, genitrix mea cara, / permoveat signi novitas carnaliter almi, / Obsequii sola veniunt istae quia causa, / Non quod te vellent vel saltim laedere possent.” / His quoque discessit dictis angustia cordis” (Maria 75.734–42; trans. Wiegand 57, slightly emended). 12. “Restat, ut ipsorum prostrati more deorum / Devota regem veneremur mente perennem” (ibid. 79.854–55; trans. Wiegand 63).

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13. “Dixerat, atque solo prostratus corpore toto / Volvitur ante pedes sanctae rogitando Mariae / Gratiolam pueri constanter voce fideli, / Quem mater gremio gaudens portavit amico” (ibid. 79.859–62; trans. Wiegand 63). 14. “Quod Ioseph vetulo narrans, audivit ab illo: / “Contine subiecto tantum te rite iumento, / Et noli, posco, narrare superflua verba” (ibid. 68.552–54; trans. Wiegand 45). 15. “Cur dicis Mariam non verbula vera locutam, / Indignatus, eam secretum cernere solam?” (ibid. 68.558–59; trans. Wiegand 45). 16. See Pseudo-Matthew, ed. J. Gisel, XIII.1, 411, 413. 17. “Cui senior vetulus legis moderamine iustus / Haut blande dictis Ioseph mox obviat istis: / “Hoc miror certe, nimium te dicere velle, / Cum videas ramos magno de germine ductos / Astris contiguos caelum pulsare profundam. . . . / Haec heros igitur venerandus sic loquebatur, / Ceu desperaret, quod praesens omnia posset / Christus, corporeis tectus fuerat quia membris” (Maria 76.760–70; trans. Wiegand 57). 18. “in gremio carae genitricis amando accumbens” (ibid. 76.771–72). 19. “Sed corpus castum nulla de sorde piandum, / Ardor carnalis quod non succendit amoris, / Ignis on laesit praesens nec tangere quivit. / Denique, divisae divino numine, flammae / Virgineis tribuere locum precibus spatiosum: / Ac prorumpentes, aestu nimioque furentes / Perdunt carnifices urendo primitus omnes; / Hinc circumstantem lambentes undique plebem / Incredulam, plures raptim stravere falanges. / Sola sed inmunis stabat pia virgo caloris, / Inter flammarum crines ludens crepitantes” (ibid. 223.360–70; trans. Wiegand 257). 20. “Nec patitur sacram post haec superesse puellam, / Per quam sunt crebro miracula tanta patrata; / Ense sed inmisso tenerum guttur penetrando, / Martiris egregiae iugulum perfodit avare, / Et vice conversa, quod non speravit, agendo / Illi profecit, cui gratis obesse cupivit, / Transmittens caelo, quam subtraxit male mundo” (ibid. 224.403–09; trans. Wiegand 259). 21. Augustine explains the spiritual significance of male and female bodies in City of God, chapters 17, 22, 24, and 29. For a discussion of Augustine and gender, see chapter 1, pages 3–7. Florence Newman also addresses Hrotsvit’s use of beauty as a reflection of the strength of the soul in “Violence and Virginity.” 22. “A propria . . . creatura ad sui imaginem condita” (Conversio Thaidis Meretricis I.i, 328). 23. See discussion of Alcuin’s dialogues in chapter 3, pp. 54–56. 24. “Sicut enim maior mundus ex IIII contrariis elementis, sed ad votum creatoris secundum armonicam moderationem concordantibus perficitur, ita et homo non solum ab eisdem elementis, sed etiam ex magis contrariis partibus coaptatur” (Conversio Thaidis meretricis I.4, 329). 25. “Corpus et anima: quia, licet illa sint contraria, tamen sunt corporalia; anima autem nec mortalis, ut corpus, nec corpus spiritalis ut anima” (ibid. I.5, 329). 26. “quia usiae nihil est contrarium, sed receptatrix est contrariorum” (ibid. I.5, 329–30).

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27. “sicut pressi excellentesque soni, armonice coniuncti, quiddam perficiunt musicum, ita dissona elementa, convenienter concordantia unum perficiunt mundum” (ibid. I.6, 330). 28. “Qui factus a nullo, vere es sine materia forma, cuius simplex esse hominem, qui non est id quod est, ex hoc et hoc fecit consistere, da diversas partes huius solvendae hominis prospere repetere principium sui originis, quo et anima caelitus indita caelestibus gaudiis intermisceatur, et corpus in molli gremio terrae, suae materiae, pacifice foveatur, quoadusque, pulverea favilla coeunte et vivaci flatu redivivos artus iterum intrante, haec eadem Thais resurgat perfecta, ut fuit, homo, inter candidulas oves collocanda et in gaudium aeternitatis inducenda; tu, qui solus id quod es, in unitate trinitatis regnas et gloriaris per infinita saecula saeculorum” (ibid. XIII.3–4, 349). 29. “Quaedam inpudens femina” (ibid. I.23, 334). 30. “Haec miranda praenitet pulchritudine et horrenda sordet turpitudine” (ibid. I.23, 335). 31. “Aestimo, ipsius aequitatis lance singulorum merita pensari et unicuique, prout gessit, sive supplicium sive praemium servari” (ibid. III.4, 338). 32. I draw here from Julia Kristeva, The Powers of Horror, and also from Douglas’s Purity and Danger. 33. “In secretum locum secedendum, in quo te ipsam discutiendo possis lamentari enormitatem tui delicti” (Conversio Thaidis meretricis III.9, 339). 34. “Videbam in visione lectulum candidulis palliolis in caelo magnifice stratum, cui quattuor splendidae virgines praeerant et quasi custodiendo astabant; at ubi iocunditatem mirae claritatis aspiciebam, intra me dicebam: ‘Haec gloria nemini magis congruit quam patri et domino meo Antonio’ ” (ibid. XI.2, 346). 35. “Quo dicto intonuit vox divina, dicens: ‘Non, ut speras, Antonio, sed Thaidi meretrici servanda est haec gloria.’ ” (ibid. XI.2, 346). 36. “Papae! quam pulchrae, quam venustae, quam egregiae puellullae!” (Passio Sanctarum Virginum Agapis Chioniae et Hirenae II.1, 270). 37. Civitatis Dei, book 1, chapters 16–19. 38. Case, “Re-Viewing Hrotsvit.” See also Kathryn Gravdal’s insightful discussion of rape in hagiographical texts in “Plotting Rape in the Female Saints’ Lives,” 21–41. 39. “At sacra virgo, minis nimium trepidans super istis, / Audacter mox praefecto dedit ista responsa: / “Si tu namque deum scires hunc, quem colo, verum / Illiusque potestatem sine fine vigentem, / Qua semper proprios pie confortando ministros / Antiqui fraudes hostis confringeret omnes, / Talia verba tuo nolles profundere rostro, / Nec mihi terrores toties praeponere tristes. / Hinc ego, quae sectando fidem Christi meliorem / Illum cognosco necnon cognoscor ab illo, / Ipsius dextra me defendente superna / Spero delicti numquam maculis violari, / Carnis spurcitias fragilis sed vincere cunctas” (Passio Sanctae Agnetis, 217.193–205; trans. Wiegand, “The Non-Dramatic Works of Hrosvitha,” 247). 40. Hirena. “Ecce, iste stultus, mente alienatus, aestimat se nostris uti amplexibus.” / Agapes. “Quid facit?” / Hirena. “Nunc ollas molli fovet gremio, nunc sartagines et

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caccabos amplectitur, mitia libans oscula.” / Chionia. “Ridiculum” (Passio Sanctarum Virginum Agapis, Chioniae et Hirenae IV.2–3, 271). 41. “Melius est, ut corpus quibuscumque iniuriis maculetur, quam anima idolis polluatur” (ibid. XII.3, 275). 42. Calimachus. “Amo.” / Amici. “Quid.” / Calimachus. “Rem pulchram, rem venustam” (Resuscitatio Drusianae et Calimachi II.2, 284). 43. Drusiana. “Quod ius consanguinitatis, quaeve legalis contidio institutionis compellit te ad mei amorem?” / Calimachus. “Tui pulchritudo.” / Drusiana. “Mea pulchritudo?” / Calimachus. “Immo.” / Drusiana. “Quid ad te?” (ibid. III.2, 285). 44. “Pro deum atque hominum fidem! si non cesseris, non quiescam, non desistam, donec te captuosis circumveniam insidiis” (ibid. III.5, 286). 45. “Eh heu! domine Iesu Christe, quid prodest castitatis professionem subiisse, cum is amens mea deceptus est specie? Intende, domine, mei timorem; intende, quem patior, dolorem! Quid mihi, quid agendum sit, ignoro: si prodidero, civilis per me fiet discordia; si celavero, insidiis diabolicis sine te refragari nequeo. Iube me in te, Christe, ocius mori, ne fiam in ruinam delicato iuveni!” (ibid. IV, 286). 46. “O, Drusiana, Drusiana, quo affectu cordis te colui, qua sinceritate dilectionis te visceratenus amplexatus fui, et tu semper abiecisti, meis votis contradixisti! Nunc in mea situm est potestate, quantislibet iniuriis te velim lacessare” (ibid. VII.1, 288). 47. “Atat! horribilis serpens invadit nos” (ibid. VII.288). Compare M. R. Sperberg-McQueen’s radical psychoanalytic reading of this scene (“Whose Body Is It?” 47–71, esp. 61–63), where the snake recalls Medusa’s head and signifies the horrifying aspect of Drusiana’s genitalia rather than Calimachus’s rape impulse: “Freud describes the Medusa’s head as a ‘representation of a woman as a being who frightens and repels because she is castrated.’ In this play the metamorphosis of the female body into an image of horror is only hinted at and must be revealed exegetically, but there are examples, perhaps known to Hrotswitha, of such a metamorphosis being rendered literally. Schulenburg quotes from the Lessons of the Office of Saint Eusebia the story of St. Eusebia from the eighth century: when she and her fellow nuns were attacked by infidels threatening rape, the virgin Eusebia ‘urged the holy virgins, caring more for preserving their purity than their life, to cut off their noses in order to irritate by this bloody spectacle the rage of the barbarians and to extinguish their passions.’ The imagery of castration here is too obvious to require explication” (63; Sperburg-McQueen cites here Schulenburg’s “Heroics of Virginity”). I find Spergburg-McQueen’s reading unconvincing and somewhat far-fetched. Aside from the troubling connection drawn between Eusebia and the horror of female castration, most problematic for me is the imposition of a psychoanalytic concept founded on the premise of the dangerous female body when other readings fit more logically in the framework and with the language of Hrotsvit. Serpents figure throughout Hrotsvit’s texts as signs of Satan, usually signaling evil intent. It seems logical,

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therefore, that the serpent here signifies Calimachus’s aggressive behavior rather than Drusiana’s female body, especially since Calimachus at this point is a pagan and thus aligned with Satan in the Christian schema of this play. As a figure for Satan and Calimachus’s violent impulse, therefore, the snake provides a vehicle for poetic justice. 48. “hortatur nostrates, avitos ritus deserere et christianae religioni se dedere” (Passio Sanctarum Virginum Fidei, Spei et Karitatis I.5, 358). 49. “Es handelt sich, wie längst gesehen worden ist, bei den Märtyrinnen um Personifikationen der Gaben des Heiligen Geistes, die schon im frühchristlichen Schrifttum eine besondere Rolle spielten und denen vor allem der hl. Augustin in seinen Werken Beachtung geschenkt hat” (Homeyer, 351, n. 4). 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid.; Hrabanus Maurus, De Cleric. Inst. Kap. 4, PL 107, c. 380–81. 52. Homeyer also connects Hrotsvit’s text to the Greek version (Hrotsvithae Opera 352, text and note 10). 53. “ ‘Scitis . . . cui nomen dedimus et cujus sumus signatae signaculo. In ejus ad finem usque persistere confessione, ne ignavia adductae dubitemus. Una mater nos genuit, eadem tres aluit, ab una sumus educatae tam corporali alimento quam spiritali: sit unus finis etiam tribus, sororibus sint sororiae et germanae voluntates’ ” (Martyrium Sanctarum Mulierum Sophiae, PG 115 c. 506, VIII). 54. “Generosa autem mater, non illiberaliter, neque pusillo et effeminato animo se gerens, sed perinde ac erubescens aliquid facere, aut dicere, quod esset abjectum et indignum tali filia, erat omnino magni et excelsi animi, hanc solum animo accipiens molestiam, ne videret alias primae exemplum non assequi, et veniret in periculum, ne unius solius et non trium videretur esse mater germana” (ibid. col. 506, IX). 55. This reading pervades Bynum’s work and has come to be commonly accepted among scholars. See especially Holy Feast, Holy Fast.

Notes to Conclusion 1. See Barbara Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses, especially pages 17–36 and 105–31, where she discusses the dynastic importance of female monasteries, particularly in the early Anglo-Saxon period, as well as other factors conducive to the proliferation of women’s communities in the early period and the subsequent waning of the age of female monasticism in England. 2. “Monastic Life of Women from the Merovingians to the Ottonians.” 3. Since the work of Bernhard Bischoff, scholarship in this area has attracted a lot of attention. Particularly important are Rosamond McKitterick, especially “Women and Literacy in the Early Middle Ages” and “Nuns’ Scriptoria in England and Francia in the Ninth Century,” both in Books, Scribes and Learn-

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ing; Janet Nelson, especially “Perceptions du Pouvoir chez les Historiennes” and “Women and the Word”; Felice Lifshitz, “Demonstrating Gun(t)za”; and John Contreni, “Education and Literary Culture.”

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Index Aachen, 41, 42; councils at, 73; palace school at, 44 Adelheid, empress, second wife of Otto I, 137 Æðelbert, laws of, 11 Æðelburga (Eugenia), abbess of Flædenbyrg and daugher of Offa, 49, 57, 59, 62, 63 Æðilðyde, abbess, wife of Æðelwold Moll, 57, 60, 61 Aeda of Saxony, 127, 139, 140, 197n6 Ælfgifu, queen, 84 Ælfric of Eynsham: and apocrypha, 100, 194n9; Augustine, use of, 75; homilies, 25, 75, 100, 102; Life of St. Eugenia 24, 90–96; Mary, representation of 25, 97, 100–103; witchcraft, views on 75–77; women, representation of 103, 194n10 Ætheldreda. See Æthelthryth Æthelflæd of Mercia, 84 Æthelthryth, 103, 194n10 Æthelwold, 83; Benedictional, 125, 194n10 Agius of Corvey, 140 Agnes, saint, 103, 126, 143, 148–150, 156 Alcuin of York, 1, 23, 33, 39, 40, 44; adoptionist controversy, role in, 44, 46, 60, 67, 181n40, 185n16;

229

Adversus haeresin Felicis, 47, 60, 185n16, 188n49; amicitia, 59, 184n8, 186n31; Commentaria super Ecclesiasten, 47–48, 181n42–45; De Fide Sanctae Trinitatis, 70; De grammatica, 4; De ratione animae, 67–71, 185n16, 189n52–54, 189n56; Disputatio Pippini cum Albino scholastico (Dialogue of Alcuin and Pippin), 54–56; education of women, 53–54, 57, 58, 66, 70, 183n4, 187n40; educator, role as, 57, 180n37; In Ioannis Evangelium (Commentary on the Gospel of John), 65, 66–67, 185n16, 188n48; intellectual circle, 39, 44, 59; Interrogationes et responsiones in Genesin, 54, 184n6; letters, 45, 48, 49, 50, 54, 56, 57–66, 67, 181n4, 182n46–48, 182n50–51; nicknaming, 59, 67, 184n14; notions of selfhood, 47; on chastity/virginity 49–51, 60, 62, 65, 182n46–48, 50–51, 181n45, 182n51, 182n53; on intellect and learning, 23, 46–47, 53–54, 56–59, 67, 69–71; orthodoxy, 44, 46; Quaestiones ad Fredegisum, 70; question-and-answer dialogues, 54, 183n4; use of Augustine, 46, 48, 54, 68, 69, 70, 182n53, 187n40

230

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Aldhelm, 50, 65, 74–75, 83, 182n53 Altercatio Hadriani et Epicteti, 54–56, 183n4 Althusser, Louis, 19–21, 84, 106, 176n33 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 8, 98, 105, 193n2 Anderson, Bonnie S., 171n1 Anderson, J. G. C., 173n17 Angilbert, abbot, counselor to Charlemagne, 39–40, 41, 43, 59, 179n27 Annales Mettenses priores (Annals of Metz), 65, 180n31 Anson, John, 86, Arno, bishop of Salzburg, 44, 64, 65, 187n38 apocrypha: Ælfric’s fear of, 100, 194n9; Hrotsvit’s Maria and, 144, 201n5 Auerbach, Erich, 27 Augustine, Archbishop of Canterbury, 78, 80, 96 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo: De civitate Dei, 6, 113, 172n8, 182n53, 202n21; De Fide, Spe et Caritate, 161; De immortalitate animae, 7, 69; De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum, 68; De Trinitate, 4, 69, 135, 165, 171n5, 172n6, 198n22; distinction between scientia and sapientia, 161; explication of Genesis (de Genesi), 5, 172n7; imago Dei, 4–7, 135, 150, 171n5, 172n6; notions of selfhood, 4; on the soul, 7, 68, 69–70, 150. See also Ælfric, use of; Alcuin, use of Augustine; Hrotsvit, use of Augustine Balthild, queen and saint, 23, 58; Translatio, 65 beauty, 26, 35, 36, 37, 40; as mark of abjection, 153; as mark of spiritual nobility, 7, 69, 150, 153,

155; as mark of subjectivity, 150; in Hrotsvit’s texts, 121, 126, 127, 128, 129, 143, 148, 150, 153, 154, 158, 159, 202n21 Bede, 77, 96, 176–177n37, 187n40, 190n7; Old English translation of his Ecclesiastical History, 79 Belanoff, Patricia, 104, 113 Benedict of Aniane, 87, 183n3; decrees of, 816, 183n3 Berhtgyth, 175n28 Bertha, daughter of Charlemagne, 35, 37, 39, 41, 179n27, 180n31 biblical citations: 1 Corinthians 11:7, 2; Ecclesiastes 7:27, 47; 7:28–30, 47, 181n41; Galatians 3:26–28, 4; 3:28, 94–95, 171n3; Genesis 3:15, 184n6; Psalm 18, 101, 103; 1 Timothy 2:11–12, 2, 62, 171n2, 186n27; 1 Timothy 5:20, 62, 186n26; 2 Timothy 4:2, 61, 186n25 Bischoff, Bernhard, 41, 179n25, 187n40, 205n3 Blanton, Virginia, 194n10 Bodarwé, Katrinette, 198n17 body, female, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 21, 22, 25, 47, 78–80, 87, 92, 96, 99, 113, 150, 158, 163, 204–205n47; imago Dei and, 4–5, 7, 171n5, 172n6; male, 6–7; relationship to soul, 1, 4, 7, 8, 20–21, 48, 55–56, 66, 67, 68, 69, 74, 97, 113, 150–151, 195n20 Boethius, De arithmetica, 162; De consolatione philosophiae, 46, 132 Boniface, Anglo-Saxon missionary and Bishop of Fulda, 14–16, 17, 24, 27, 83, 169, 174n26 Borst, Arno, 188n42 Brown, Peter, 3, 8, 98, 190n6, 193n2 Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, 121, 128, 131, 197n10 Bullough, Donald, 182n1, 185n17 Butler, Judith, 22, 129, 152, 153, 176n35

Index Bynum, Caroline Walker, 18, 164, 205n55 Carolingian renaissance, 44, 167 Case, Sue Ellen, 155, 196n5 Cescutti, Eva, 128, 196n1, 197n11 Chance, Jane, 104, 117 Charlemagne, 1; councils and mandates of, 28, 29, 33; court of, 15, 33; reforms of, 18, 30; treatment of daughters, 30, 38–39 chastity, 14, 26, 48–52, 58, 60, 65, 66, 80, 98, 102, 127, 131, 148, 155, 156, 158, 165 Chelles, 39, 41, 44, 54, 57, 64, 179n25, 187n38, 187n40 Christian subject. See corporate Christian identity claustration. See enclosure of female monastics Clayton, Mary, 100, 193n1, 200n2, 201n3, 201n4 Cloke, Gillian, 171n1 Clover, Carol, 175n32 Cnut, king, and second ordo, 82 Coletti, Theresa, 99 contesting ideologies, 32 Contreni, John, 41, 180n32, 187n40, 206n3 conversion, 2, 14–17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 27, 74, 81, 90, 167; of Anglo-Saxon England, 18, 74, 75, 77–80, 96; of Saxony, 14–17, 18 corporate Christian identity, 8, 25, 104, 106, 107, 110, 114, 155, 168 councils and synods: Council of Laodica, 77; Synod at Auxerre, 77; Frankish synods of 742 and 743, 174n26; Council of Paris (Concilia Parisiense), 829, 31, 178n11; Councils of Aachen, 816 and 817, 73, 183n3 Crawford, Sally, 176n37 cross-dressing, 85, 91, 93, 96

231

Cubitt, Catherine, 91, 175n30, 194n10 cultural intelligibility, 1, 21, 22, 103, 165, 170 Cyneðryð, queen, wife of Offa, 63 Daly, William, 183n4 Damico, Helen, 118 De Jong, Mayke, 46, 180n37 Desmond, Marilynn, 175n31 Dhuoda, 54, 183n2, Diem, Albrecht, 180n37 Disputatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi, 54–56, 183n4 Doane, A. N., 105, 115, 116, 117, 177n38, 195n11 Dockray-Miller, Mary, 99, 111, 113, 193n3, 195n19, 195n20 double (mixed) monastery, 64, 80, 186n36, 187n36 Douglas, Mary, 99, 190n6, 203n32 Dronke, Peter, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 130, 132, 133, 134, 183n2, 197n10, 198n12 Eangyth, 24 early Church, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 22, 85, 98, 171n4, 190n6 Ecclesia, 50, 103, 107, 193n2 Ecclesiastes, 47–48, 181n41, 181n42 ecclesiastical reform, 1, 16, 27, 124, 143, 144, 147, 169, 191n13; AngloSaxon, 1, 18, 25, 52, 74, 82, 83, 87, 97, 118, 168–169, 194n10; Frankish, 16, 18, 28, 30, 31, 32, 53, 87, 168–169, 174n23, 174n26, 183n3; Saxon, 17, 143, 168–169; women and, 1, 14, 16–18, 23, 26, 27–28, 30–31, 33, 38–39, 52, 73–74, 77, 83–84, 86, 122, 124, 127–128, 135, 143–144, 147, 167–168, 169, 175n28, 191n13, 196n2 Ecfrith, king of Mercia, 186n35 Ecgburg, 175n28 Eckenstein, Lina, 12, 13, 199n23

232

Index

Edith, empress, first wife of Otto I, 137, 138, 139 Emerton, Ephraim, 174n26 Emma, queen, 81, 84 enclosure of female monastics, 16, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 38, 44, 64, 87, 143, 169, 179n26, 196n24 Enright, M. J., 176n37 Essen, 122, 169, 198n17 Eugenia/Eugenius, saint, 24, 62, 86, 90–96 Euphrosyne/Smaragdus, saint, 24, 86–90, 96 Evans, John, 104 Eve, 6, 24, 11, 25, 97, 103–105, 107–119, 195n19–21, 196n24–27 Faremoutiers, Brie, 39, 57, 64 Farr, Carol A., 176n37, 177n37 Fell, Christine, 11, 74, 75, 84, 174n22, 175n28, 176n36 female: agency, 24, 57, 91, 103, 124, 165, 167, 173n21; as abject, 8, 21, 22, 25, 97, 103, 104, 114, 117, 118, 152, 153, 154, 164, 165, 168; objectification of, 26, 35, 84, 99, 101, 128, 130, 147, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 167; piety, 3, 11, 28, 71, 89–90, 96, 122, 139, 141, 164, 165, 167, 168; solidarity, 147, 160, 161, 163; subjugation, 12, 21, 167; voice, 18, 41, 73, 81, 93, 97, 102, 121, 130, 131–132, 149, 152, 163, 170, 194n10 Forse, James, 143 Foucault, Michel, 20–21, 106, 154 Frankforter, A. Daniel, 127 Frantzen, Allen, 87, 192n28 Galatians 3:26–28, 4, 94–95 Gandersheim, 122–124, 125, 169, 183n3, 198n17, 200n33–34; and bishops of Hildesheim, 200n34; ecclesiastical immunity of, 139,

200n33; Hrotsvit’s epic poem on, 125, 139–141 Garrison, Mary, 184n14 Gaskoin, J. B., 180n36 Gelasius I, pope, 77 gender: Augustine and, 3–7, 202n21; clothing as a marker of, 30, 85, 91, 93, 96; equality, 3; and imago Dei, 1, 3; in the early Church, 8; and subject formation, 1–9; in the works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. See also subject formation; women, becoming male Genesis, 2, 5–6, 68, 106; Alcuin of York, Interrogationes et responsiones in Genesim, 184n6; images in MS Junius 11, 108, 109, 111, 112; Old English account of the Fall in MS Junius 11, 103–119; Old Saxon poem, 103, 195n11 Gerberga, abbess of Gandersheim, niece of Otto I, 135, 139 Germanic women, 9–13, 28, 74, 77– 81, 82, 86, 169, 172n14, 173n20, 176n37, 198n23; as prophets, 10–11, 74–75, 77, 140, 173n17, 189n1, 198n23, 200n35 Gisla, abbess, sister of Charlemagne, 37, 39, 40, 50, 57, 64–66, 179n25, 179n28, 180n31, 185n16, 187n38, 188n43; Annales Mettenses priores, 65; founder of Notre Dame de Chelles, 65; patron of St. Denis, 65; royal personage, 65; scholarly pursuits of, 65; Translatio of St. Balthild, 65 Gisla, Charlemagne’s daughter, 41, 178n18, 179n21, 180n31 Godman, Peter, 34, 42, 43 Gold, Barbara, 124, 126, 157 Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, 145, 146, 200n2, 201n3, 202n16 grave goods, as evidence for women in Anglo-Saxon England, 75

Index Gregory of Nyssa, 85 Gregory the Great, pope, 3, 77–79, 80, 94, 96, 100, 190n7 Gundrada (Eulalia), cousin of Charlemagne, 39, 50, 51, 57, 59, 60, 67, 70, 169, 182n52, 183n3, 185n16 Hathumoda, first abbess of Gandersheim, 139, 140 Head, Pauline, 196n3 Head, Thomas, 140, 200n33 Henry, Duke of Bavaria, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139 heresy, 17, 68, 100, 104–105, 180n40; Adoptionist Controversy 44, 46, 60, 67, 181n40, 185n16; Arian and Pelagian 9, 172n13; women and 17, 47, 175n29, 180n40. See also apocrypha Herford, 169, 183n3 Hildegard, queen, second wife of Charlemagne, 15 Hildesheim, bishops of, 139, 200n34 Hollis, Stephanie, 15, 16, 24, 63, 73, 80, 82, 97, 174n22, 174n23, 175n30, 176n37, 177n4, 186n35, 191n13 Homeyer, Helen, 161, 198, 205n49, 205n52 Horner, Shari, 16, 196n24, Hrabanus Maurus, 14, 59, 161, 205n51 Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, 1, 25, 26, 121–130; Abraham (see Lapsus et Conversio Mariae); Adelheid, account of, 137; Aeda, account of, 127, 139, 140; Ascensio (Ascension of Christ), 125, 144, 165, 201n4; Augustine, use of, 131, 135, 150, 155, 156, 157, 161, 202n21; Basilius, 127, 197n8; Boethius, use of, 132, 162; Calimachus (see Resuscitation of Drusiana and Calimachus); catechresis, use of, 165; Christian

233 ideals, promotion of, 126, 128, 143, 162, 165, 168, 169; Conversio Thaidis meretricis (Conversion of the Whore Thais), 26, 143, 141, 150– 155, 202n22, 202n24–26, 203n27– 31, 203n33–35; Deeds of Otto (see Gesta Ottonis); dramatic works, 121, 125, 131, 143, 147, 150– 165; Drusiana (see Resuscitation of Drusiana and Calimachus); Dulcitius (see Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena); Edith, account of, 137, 138, 139; education of, 121–122, 127, 133, 139, 143, 169–170; Fall and Conversion of Mary (see Lapsus et Conversio Mariae); Gesta Ottonis, 135–139; histories, 26, 121, 124, 125–127, 135–141; humility topos, use of, 130, 132, 133, 134–135; Lapsus et Conversio Mariae 26; Maria 143–147; Martyrdom of Saint Agnes, 143, 148–150, 156; Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena, 155, 156–157; Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Fides, Spes, and Karitas, 160–165; on beauty, 121, 126, 127, 128, 129, 143, 148, 150, 153, 154, 155, 158, 159, 202n21; on piety, 122, 125, 136, 137–139, 141, 143, 148, 164–165, 167, 168, 169; Passio sanctae Agnetis (see Martyrdom of Saint Agnes); Passio sanctarum virginum Agapis, Chioniae et Hirenae (see Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena); Passio sanctarum virginum Agapis, Chioniae et Hirenae (see Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena); Passio sanctarum virginum Fidei, Spei et Karitatis (see Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Faith, Hope, and Charity); prefaces, 130–135; Primordia

234

Index

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (continued) Coenobii Gandeshemensis (History of the Foundation of Gandersheim) 139–141; rape, representations of 127, 128, 129, 138, 147, 155–160, 203n38, 204n47; rara avis, perceived as, 197n11; Resuscitatio Drusianae et Calimachi (Resuscitation of Drusiana and Calimachus), 143, 157–160, 204n42–47; Sapientia (see the Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Fides, Spes, and Karitas); Terence, use of, 123, 131–132, 197n10, 198n17; Thais (see Conversio meretricis Thaidis); verse legends, 26, 125–126, 134, 135, 143–150; virginity, views on 121, 126, 128, 129, 143, 147, 148, 149; virilitas (virility), views on 128; women and imperial power, representation of 137, 143, 163–164 Hugeburc of Heidenheim, “Life of Willibald,” 42, 180n33 Hundruda, 57, 60, 63 image of God (imago Dei), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 55, 68, 135, 150, 152, 170, 171n5, 172n6, 183n5 intellect, 3, 9, 23, 25, 26, 28, 32, 35, 39, 39, 40, 46, 53, 54, 59, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 74, 83, 95, 104, 105, 106, 107, 113, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 128, 129, 132, 133, 134, 143, 148, 150, 151, 152, 162, 163, 169, 170, 175n28, 179n25, 187n40, 193n3 Jaeger, C. Stephen, 59 Jager, Eric, 113 Jerome, 3, 9, 69, 70, 94, 95, 100, 133, 150; Commentary on Ephesians 95; Cogitis me (see Paschasius Radbertus) Jolly, Karen Louise, 77 Jouarre, 39, 57, 64

Judith, empress, second wife of Louis the Pious, 54, 58 Judith, Old Testament figure, 103 Karkov, Catherine, 111, 116, 195n19, 196n25, 196n27 Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa, 41–44 Kathryn Gravdal, 155, 157, 159, 203n38 Klein, Stacy, 84, 194n10 Klinck, Anne, 105 Kristeva, Julia, 154, 176n35, 203n32 Kuhn, Hugo, 125, 126 Laistner, M. L. W., 180n36 Lees, Clare, 16, 173n22, 175n31 Lees, Jay T., 199n25 Leo III, pope, 41, 64, 180n31 Leoba, saint, abbess of Tauberbischofsheim, 14–16, 23, 124, 174n23, 196n3. See also Rudolf of Fulda, Life of Leoba (Vita Leobae) Leviticus, 79, 177n5, 190n10 Life of St. Eugenia, 24, 90–96. See also Ælfric of Eynsham Life of St. Euphrosyne, 24, 86–90, 96 Lifshitz, Felice, 206n3 literacy, 53, 83, 85, 168, 183n2, 196n24 Liudolf, duke of Saxony, 139 Liudolfings, and Gandersheim, 122, 139, 140, 141 Liutgard, queen, fifth wife of Charlemagne, 35–36, 43, 63 Louis the Pious, 18; accession to the throne, 30–31; reform measures, 25, 31, 32, 73, 167, 169 Lul, bishop of Fulda, 16, 174n27 Macrina, Saint, 85 Marenbon, John, 45, 46, 180n36 Martyrium Sanctarum Mulierum Sophiae et ejus Filiarum Fidei, Spei et Charitatis, 161–162, 205n53

Index Mary, Blessed Virgin, 8, 24–25, 97–100, 107, 193n1, 193n2; Ælfric’s representation of, 97, 100–103, 118, 193–194n4, 194n5, 194n8, 194n9; Hrotsvit’s representation of, 138, 143–147, 201n2, 201n4, 202n13, 202n15; in Gospel of PseudoMatthew, 200n2, 201n9; in Old English Advent, 193n3; as Ecclesia, 103, 107, 193n2. See also Hrotsvit: Maria Mattei-Cerasoli, Leone 60, 182n1, 185n17 Matter, E. Ann, 7, 70, 183n4 McCormick, Michael, 180n30 McKitterick, Rosamond, 41, 180n32, 205n3, McNamara, Jo Ann Kay, 12, 171n1, 171n4, 172n12, 173n21, 173n22, 175n28, 176n32, 177n4, 179n26 menstruation, 78–80, 99, 191 Meyer, M. A., 191n13, 193n13 Miles, Margaret, 8, 85, 86, 106, 171n1, 190n6, Mintz, Susannah, 105 missionaries, women as, 14, 16, 17 monasticism, 16, 29, 83, 89, 174n26; enclosure of female monastics, 16, 27, 29, 30, 38, 64, 87, 179n26, 196n24; segregation of female monastics, 15–16, 38–39, 63, 90, 95, 174n26, 176n37; dynastic import of female monastic communities, 205n1. See also double (mixed) monastery morgengifu, 11 MS Junius 11, 103 Murray, Jacqueline, 18 Nelson, Charles, 197n9 Nelson, Janet, 10, 16, 30, 31, 41, 58, 59, 65, 124, 135, 175n28, 177n4, 179n25, 180n32, 199n23, 199n25, 206n3

235

Neuman de Vegvar, Carol, 176n37 Newman, Florence, 202n21 Newnan, Eva May, 141, 200n36, 200n38 Oda, duchess of Saxony, 139, 140, 141 Offa, king of Mercia, 60, 62, 63 Okasha, Elizabeth, 85 Olsen, Alexandra Hennessy, 175n31, 175n32 ordination of queens, 81–82, 191n14 Origen, 3 orthodoxy, 9, 18, 33, 38, 44, 46, 96, 99 Otto I, 122, 125, 136, 139 Ottonian renaissance, 1, 26, 168 Overing, Gillian, 16, 110, 114, 117, 118, 173n22, 175n31 palace school at Aachen, 33, 39, 40, 44, 54, 70 Palladius, 85 Paschasius Radbertus, 51, 100; Cogitis me, 100 Pasternack, Carol Braun, 176n32 Paul the Deacon, 40 Paul, apostle, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 70, 75, 90, 95, 193n31 peace weaver, 105, 117–118 Pelagius, saint, 148 penitentials of Theodore, 80 Petroff, Elizabeth, 148 Pseudo-Ambrose, 148 Pseudo-Matthew, Gospel of. See Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew Quedlinburg, 122, 198n17; Hazecha of, 197n11 queens, ordination of, 81–83 queenship, 58, 81–82, 84, 97, 169 Quem quaeritis, 125 Radegund of Poitiers, 23, 58, 123 Ranke-Heinemann, Uta, 171n1

236

Index

rape, 12, 26, 50, 52, 62, 90, 127, 128, 129, 138, 147, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 182n53, 203n38, 204n47 Rather of Verona, 121, 128 reason and gender, 5, 7–8, 17, 48, 69, 70, 110, 113, 116, 151, 152, 163, 175 reform movements. See ecclesiastical reform movements Regularis Concordia, 82, 83, 87 Renoir, Alain, 105 Reuter, Timothy, 137, 173n18, 199n23 Reuther, Rosemary Radford, 171n1 Riché, Pierre, 46 ritual purity, 28, 73, 77–80, 177n5, 190n6 Rodtrud (Hrothrud), daughter of Charlemagne, 38–39, 40, 41, 50, 57, 59, 178n18, 179n21, 180n31; and Gisla, 63–65, 66, 185n16, 187n40 Roy, Gopa, 90 Rudolf of Fulda, 14, 16; Vita Leobae, 14–16, 124, 174n23, 174n24, 174n25 Samplonius, Kees, 189n1 Sapientia, saint, 126, 160–161, 162, 163, 164 Schneider, Dagmar Beate, 80, 82, 173n14, 186n36 Schulenburg, Jane Tibbets, 12, 17, 24, 28, 127, 173n21, 173n22, 175n28, 175n30, 177n2, 177n3, 177n4, 182n49, 187n36, 204n47 Scott, Joan Wallach, 18 scriptoria, 41, 54, 65, 179n25, 187n40, 205n3 segregation of female monastics. See monasticism selfhood, notions of. See subjectivity; Alcuin, notions of selfhood; Augustine, notions of selfhood

sensuality, as female trait, 5, 8, 17, 26, 48, 98, 104, 107, 110, 113, 151, 152 Serralda, Vincent, 46, 47, 67, 68, 69, 188n51 Smith, Julia M. H., 183n2 Soissons, 39, 43, 44, 57, 64, 180n31, 183n3 Song of Songs, 98, 149 Sophia, saint, 161–162, 205n53. See also Sapientia soul, Alcuin’s treatise on (De ratione animae), 67–71, 185n16; definitions of, 3, 55–56, 67–70, 184n9; gendering of, 7, 48, 49, 56, 67–68, 110–113, 151–152, 170, 195n20; and imago De, 47, 170; and power 170; relationship to body, 1, 7, 8, 20–21, 48, 49, 51–52, 55–56, 67–78, 97, 102–111, 150–152, 170, 188n51, 195n20, 202n21 Sperburg-McQueen, M. R., 196n4, 204n47 St. Croix, Poitiers, 183n3 St. Emmeram, monastery, 122, 141; monks of, 133 Stafford, Pauline, 81, 82, 87, 92, 94, 174n22, 175n30, 191n13, 191n14, 193n30 Stenton, Doris, 176n36 Story, Joanna, 185n20 subjectivity categories of: Absolute Subject, 20; corporate Christian subject, 8, 25, 104, 106, 107, 110, 114, 155, 168; supplementary (or ancillary) subject, 22, 32, 84, 97, 103, 167 formation of: as effect of power, 20–21; gender and Christian subject formation, 1–9; interpellation of subjects, 19–20, 25, 84, 103, 106, 119, 124, 170, 176n33; (de)materialization, 1, 22, 26, 84, 104, 130, 152, 165; role

Index of body in, 4, 6–8, 12, 20–21, 22, 55–56, 67–68, 69, 74, 97, 111–113, 150–152, 154, 163, 164, 195n20; in relation to abjection, 8, 114, 118, 153, 154 gendered subject positions, 1, 3, 8, 13, 19, 21–26, 33, 73, 84, 93, 96, 97, 98, 103–104, 110, 116, 119, 150, 151, 152, 165, 183n5, 184n6 theories of: Louis Althusser, 19–20, 21; Judith Butler, 22, 129, 152, 153, 176n35; Michel Foucault, 20–21, 106, 154, 195n16; Elizabeth Grosz, 151; Julia Kristeva, 154, 176n35, 203n32 Suchier, Walther, 54, 183n4, 183n5 Suitha, abbess, 174n27 Szarmach, Paul, 70, 88, 89, 94 Tacitus, De origine et situ Germanorum (Germania), 9–13, 74, 172n14, 173n19 Tangl, Michael, 174n26, 175n29 Terence, 123, 131, 132, 197n10, 198n17 Theodore of Tarsus, penitentials, 80 Theodrada, cousin of Charlemagne, 54, 169, 183n3 Theodrada, daughter of Charlemagne, 37 Theodulf, bishop of Orléans, 33–39; Capitula ad presbyteros parochiae suae, 33–34; Contra iudices, 34; Ad Carolum Regem, 34–38 Thiebaux, Marcelle, 183n2 Toswell, M. J., 173n14 transvestite saints, 24, 85–96, 192n18; and ecclesiastical reform, 85–87, 89, 92, 94, 96; and homoerotic desire, 87, 92; Life of St. Eugenia, 90–96; Life of St. Euphrosyne, 86–90, 96 Treharne, Elaine, 194n10

237

Venantius Fortunatus, 42; De virginitate, 42 virago, 36 virginity, 25, 26, 39, 42, 49, 50, 51, 60, 62, 80, 87, 90–91, 92, 95, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 121, 126, 128, 129, 143, 147–148, 149, 173n21 virility, and women, 17, 36, 86, 88, 128. See also transvestite saints; women: becoming male Vita Leobae. See Life of Leoba Walker, Jonathan, 96, 192n18 Wallace, Dorothy Patricia, 81, 175n28 Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., 10, 12, 44, 199n23 Wallach, Liutpold, 182n1, 185n17 Wemple, Suzanne Fonay, 2, 3, 10, 12, 31, 32, 53, 54, 77, 123, 124, 169, 173n20, 173n22, 175n28, 175n30, 177n39, 177n4, 191n13, 196n2, 199n23, 200n34 widows, 3, 31, 171n4 Widukind, Res gestae Saxonicae, 135 Wiethaus, Ulrike, 198n16 Wilhelm, archbishop of Mainz, 139 Wilson, Katharina, 133, 137, 141, 199n24 winileudos, 177n7, 177n8 women: abjection of, 8, 21, 22, 25, 97, 103, 104, 114, 117, 118, 152– 154, 164–165, 168; adultery, 12; and allegory, 4, 48, 107, 160–161, 162; and conversion, 14, 17, 18, 22–23, 24, 74, 77, 78–81, 90, 96, 159, 167, 170, 174n23, 176n32; and history/cultural memory, 13, 18–19, 20, 21, 26, 43, 117, 121, 124, 125, 129, 135–137, 139, 140, 143, 176n32, 199n23, 199n25, 200n33; and language, 18, 22, 83, 114, 123, 133, 140, 197n9; and learning,

238

Index

women (continued) 14, 23, 30, 36, 40, 53, 54, 56–58, 60, 66, 122, 127, 132–134, 139, 143, 169, 179n25, 183n2, 187n40, 196n24, 205n3; and literacy, 53, 83, 85, 168, 183n2, 196n24, 205n3; and magic, 10, 75, 77; and piety, 3, 11, 28, 35, 59, 63, 71, 82, 89–90, 96, 122, 125, 136–137, 138, 139, 141, 143, 148, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 186n35, 199n23; and power, 7, 10, 14, 16, 19, 24, 30, 31, 32, 34, 41, 43, 59, 64, 71, 74, 77, 80–81, 82, 83, 84, 94–95, 96, 97–98, 99–100, 103–104, 113, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 127, 129, 137, 139–141, 145–147, 148–149, 155–157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 168–170, 175n32, 177n37, 191n13, 193n30, 193n3, 194n10; and rape, 12, 26, 50, 52, 62, 90, 127, 128, 129, 138, 147, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 182n53, 203n38, 204n47; and reform, 1, 14, 16–18, 23, 26, 27–28, 30–31, 33, 38–39, 52, 73–74, 77, 83–84, 86, 122, 124, 127–128, 135, 143–144, 147, 167–168, 169, 175n28, 191n13, 196n2; and sensuality, 5, 8, 17, 26, 48, 98, 104, 107, 110, 113, 151, 152; and spirituality, 4, 7, 9, 10–11, 14, 32, 47, 52, 60–61, 66, 69–70, 71, 74–75, 82–83, 85, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 100, 123, 124, 126, 130, 139, 141, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 165, 171n5, 174n23, 180n39, 183n2, 185n22, 188n46, 199n23, 202n21, 202n25, 205n53; and virility, 17, 88, 128, 188n45 (see also becoming male); approaching

the altar, 3, 28, 31, 33, 63, 77, 123, 178n11, 178n13, 186n32; as autonomous subjects, 7, 19, 22, 23, 24, 30, 71, 84, 92, 110, 116, 155, 167, 169, 170; as healers, 10, 75, 77, 90, 126; as mark of original sin, 8, 78; as preachers, 14, 16, 126, 165; as teachers, 14, 39, 40, 61, 70, 126, 133; becoming male, 8, 85–86, 93–94; cross-dressing, 30, 85, 91, 96, 178n10; cultural authority of, 59; cultural intelligibility of, 8, 18, 21, 77, 85, 153, 165; divination, associated with, 10, 74, 75–77, 140, 173n17, 189n1, 200n35; infirmity of, 34, 78, 79, 95, 178n13, 191n10; legal rights, 11, 12; marriage, 4, 9, 11, 48, 77, 80, 89, 91, 92, 93, 123, 130, 131, 149; missionaries, 14, 16; “mother-age,” 13; objectification of, 26, 35, 84, 99, 101, 128, 130, 147, 153, 155, 156–159, 167; pollution, associated with, 8, 23, 28, 34, 78– 79, 80, 99, 148, 191n11; property and, 11–12, 92; prostitutes, 13, 16, 130, 153–155, 165; religious, 11, 13, 14–15, 16, 17, 28–31, 38, 39, 41, 43, 50, 53, 58, 81–82, 123–124, 127, 173n22, 174n27, 175n28, 175n30, 182n53 (see also enclosure of female monastics; segregation of female monastics); scriptoria associated with, 41, 54, 65, 187n40, 205n3 Yorke, Barbara, 174n22, 175n28, 175n30, 186n36, 191n13, 205n1 Zachary, pope, 17, 181 Zinsser, Judith P., 171n1

LITERARY CRITICISM

3FGPSNBOE3FTJTUBODF Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture )FMFOF4DIFDL

“This book connects Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Latin material to the fascinating work of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. This connection has seldom, if ever, been made, and yet Scheck not only makes it but also explores it fully. She opens up new ways of reading both traditions. I also like the emphasis placed on Anglo-Latin and ecclesiastical culture, since it is more common for studies of women in the early Middle Ages to focus on vernacular and lay traditions.” — Shari Horner, author of The Discourse of Enclosure: Representing Women in Old English Literature

A volume in the SUNY series in Medieval Studies Paul E. Szarmach, editor

SUNY P R E S S State University of New York Press www.sunypress.edu

Reform and Resistance: Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture

Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval West (Medieval Culture and Society)

Daughtering and Mothering: Female Subjectivity Reanalysed

Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval West (Medieval Culture and Society)

Messianism and Puritanical Reform (Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World)

Lutheran Ecclesiastical Culture, 1550-1675

Spatial formations (Theory,Culture and Society)

Pestilence in Medieval & Early Modern English Literature (Studies in Medieval History and Culture, 23)

Categories of Medieval Culture

Textual Subjectivity: The Encoding of Subjectivity in Medieval Narratives and Lyrics

Medieval Monstrosity and the Female Body

Beyond Equality and Difference: Citizenship, Feminist Politics and Female Subjectivity

Outlaws in Medieval and Early Modern England

Mozarabs in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

Holiness and Politics in Early Medieval Thought

Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations of Black America (Religion in America)

Consuming Passions: The Uses of Cannibalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Studies in Medieval History and Culture, 20)

Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam

The early Slavs: culture and society in early medieval Eastern Europe

Culture, Power and Personality in Medieval France

Early Medieval Philosophy

Early Medieval Society

Early Medieval Theology

Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture

Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture

Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture

Diplomacy and Early Modern Culture (Early Modern Literature in History)

The Representation of Women's Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935

Latin and the Vernacular Languages in Early Medieval Britain (Studies in the Early History of Britain)

Reform and Resistance: Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture

Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval West (Medieval Culture and Society)

Daughtering and Mothering: Female Subjectivity Reanalysed

Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval West (Medieval Culture and Society)

Messianism and Puritanical Reform (Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World)

Lutheran Ecclesiastical Culture, 1550-1675

Spatial formations (Theory,Culture and Society)

Pestilence in Medieval & Early Modern English Literature (Studies in Medieval History and Culture, 23)

Categories of Medieval Culture

Textual Subjectivity: The Encoding of Subjectivity in Medieval Narratives and Lyrics

Medieval Monstrosity and the Female Body

Beyond Equality and Difference: Citizenship, Feminist Politics and Female Subjectivity

Outlaws in Medieval and Early Modern England

Mozarabs in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

Holiness and Politics in Early Medieval Thought

Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations of Black America (Religion in America)

Consuming Passions: The Uses of Cannibalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Studies in Medieval History and Culture, 20)

Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam

The early Slavs: culture and society in early medieval Eastern Europe

Culture, Power and Personality in Medieval France

Early Medieval Philosophy

Early Medieval Society

Early Medieval Theology

Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture

Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture

Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture

Diplomacy and Early Modern Culture (Early Modern Literature in History)

The Representation of Women's Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935

Latin and the Vernacular Languages in Early Medieval Britain (Studies in the Early History of Britain)

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