The Bride Of Christ Goes To Hell: Metaphor And Embodiment In The Lives Of Pious Women, 200-1500 (the Middle Ages Series)
by Dyan Elliott /
2011 / English / PDF
4.6 MB Download
The early Christian writer Tertullian first applied the epithet
"bride of Christ" to the uppity virgins of Carthage as a means of
enforcing female obedience. Henceforth, the virgin as Christ's
spouse was expected to manifest matronly modesty and due
submission, hobbling virginity's ancient capacity to destabilize
gender roles. In the early Middle Ages, the focus on virginity
and the attendant anxiety over its possible loss reinforced the
emphasis on claustration in female religious communities, while
also profoundly disparaging the nonvirginal members of a given
community.
The early Christian writer Tertullian first applied the epithet
"bride of Christ" to the uppity virgins of Carthage as a means of
enforcing female obedience. Henceforth, the virgin as Christ's
spouse was expected to manifest matronly modesty and due
submission, hobbling virginity's ancient capacity to destabilize
gender roles. In the early Middle Ages, the focus on virginity
and the attendant anxiety over its possible loss reinforced the
emphasis on claustration in female religious communities, while
also profoundly disparaging the nonvirginal members of a given
community.
With the rising importance of intentionality in determining a
person's spiritual profile in the high Middle Ages, the title of
bride could be applied and appropriated to laywomen who were
nonvirgins as well. Such instances of democratization coincided
with the rise of bridal mysticism and a progressive somatization
of female spirituality. These factors helped cultivate an
increasingly literal and eroticized discourse: women began to
undergo mystical enactments of their union with Christ, including
ecstatic consummations and vivid phantom pregnancies. Female
mystics also became increasingly intimate with their confessors
and other clerical confidants, who were sometimes represented as
stand-ins for the celestial bridegroom. The dramatic merging of
the spiritual and physical in female expressions of religiosity
made church authorities fearful, an anxiety that would coalesce
around the figure of the witch and her carnal induction into the
Sabbath.
With the rising importance of intentionality in determining a
person's spiritual profile in the high Middle Ages, the title of
bride could be applied and appropriated to laywomen who were
nonvirgins as well. Such instances of democratization coincided
with the rise of bridal mysticism and a progressive somatization
of female spirituality. These factors helped cultivate an
increasingly literal and eroticized discourse: women began to
undergo mystical enactments of their union with Christ, including
ecstatic consummations and vivid phantom pregnancies. Female
mystics also became increasingly intimate with their confessors
and other clerical confidants, who were sometimes represented as
stand-ins for the celestial bridegroom. The dramatic merging of
the spiritual and physical in female expressions of religiosity
made church authorities fearful, an anxiety that would coalesce
around the figure of the witch and her carnal induction into the
Sabbath.
