Mary Magdalene in Medieval Culture

Conflicted Roles

Peter Loewen, Robin Waugh, Peter Loewen, Robin Waugh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780415813150
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135081911
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This innovative and multidisciplinary collection visits representations and interpretations of Mary Magdalene in the medieval and early modern periods, questioning major scholarly assumptions behind the examination of female saints and their depictions in medieval artworks, literature, and music. Mary Magdalene's many and various characterizations from reformed prostitute to conversion-figure to devotee of Christ to "apostle to the apostles" to spiritual advisor to the Prince of Marseilles to hermit in the desert, to list just a few examples, mean that the many conflicted representations of Mary Magdalene apply to a staggering variety of cultural material, including art, liturgy, music, literature, theology, hagiography, and the historical record. Furthermore, Mary Magdalene has grown into an extremely popular and controversial figure due to recent books and movies concerning her, and due to a groundswell of general speculation concerning her relationship to Jesus: was she his acquaintance, follower, companion, wife, family-member, or lover? This volume employs a broad spectrum of theoretical methodologies in order to present poststructuralist, postcolonial, postmodernist, hagiographic, and feminist readings of the figure of Mary Magdalene, addressing and interrogating her conflicting roles and the precise relationship between her sacred and secular representations.

Part I

Mary Magdalene’s Roles in Development

1 Apostle to the Apostles

The Complexity of Medieval Preaching about Mary Magdalene

Larissa Juliet Taylor

Within any period there are radically different voices that cannot be reconciled or reduced to each other.… I did, however, come to reject profoundly the idea that the reconciliation of opposites, synthesis following upon dialectical opposition, mono-causal answers crafted after considering alternatives, was possible or desirable. This rejection came to be rooted … in a sense of what life is like.¹

Caroline Walker Bynum’s incisive rejection of oversimplification and generalization speaks directly to stereotypes of a misogynistic medieval church that portrayed women as the source of evil. She argues that “texts by and about women [are] not ventriloquism, but … creative, even courageous self-expression.”² Yet reductionist stereotypes persist, despite numerous studies of powerful women recognized not only by their confessors but also by the church. Examples of exceptional women have been supplemented by stories of ‘ordinary’ ones who asserted agency with or without the support of the church, family, and magistrates. Yet R. Howard Bloch asserts that medieval life was uniformly misogynistic and that it was only in oppositions that women could be conceptualized. He maintains that:

misogyny [is] a speech act in which woman is the subject of the sentence and the predicate a more general term; or, alternatively, as the use of the substantive woman or woman with a capital W.… That effect which dwells in the zone where the use of words produces the most basic elements of thought-and thought authorizes action, is to make of woman an essence, which, as essence, is eliminated from the world historical stage. [The purpose of misogyny] … to remove individual women from the realm of events-depends upon the transformation of woman into a general category, which, internally at least appears never to change.³

No real understanding of women—individuals who occupied the full spectrum of possibilities between Eve and Mary, and who had at least a little of both in them—was possible according to Bloch. The truth, as Bynum asserts, lies in paradox rather than in these poles of opposition. In any period in history, different voices express different views. That does not eliminate gendered assumptions or the existence of patriarchy, but should give us pause when considering such a loaded and generalized concept as ‘medieval women.’ Like Bynum, Marilyn Migiel argues that “the power of the feminist perspective—like that of Pico’s man blessed by dignity— consists in being able to resist confining categorizations, in being able to occupy the place of the animals as well as that of higher beings.”⁴

Clare of Assisi (d. 1253), one of Francis’s first followers, fought against cardinals and popes for nearly three decades after his death to maintain the Franciscan vow of poverty for the Poor Clares. She died shortly after she received papal affirmation and was canonized two years later by Pope Alexander IV, who described her: “O clarity of blessed Clare to be admired … who shone, I say, in the world, in religion she shone forth; in [San Damiano] she enlightened like a beam of sunshine, in the cloister she illuminated like a flash of lightning.… She was clear on earth, in the sky she shines back! O how great the passion of her light!”⁵ Less than two centuries later, Christine de Pizan (d. 1430), the famed lay writer, wrote in admiration of other women, including Joan of Arc, of whom she declared: “A girl of sixteen years … on whom arms do not weigh heavy … so strong and so hardy! And her enemies flee from her, not one of them can last … [She] drives them out of France, recovering castles and cities … She is the leader of our worthy and able men.”⁶ In his 1461 seven-page commentary devoted to Joan thirty years after her execution, Pope Pius II echoed Christine, extolling Joan’s military skills, recounting the fear she inspired in the English, and calling her “that astonishing and marvelous Maid who restored the kingdom of France.”⁷

Studies of ordinary nuns at the end of the Middle Ages who either proposed reform or chose to resist it demonstrate the tenacity and even violence of women unwilling to accept roles decided for them by churchmen, family, or city magistrates.⁸ Women also took to the pilgrimage routes of Europe in large numbers sometimes in defiance of male authority but often with support from clergymen.⁹ My studies of late-medieval French preachers show that women, both Catholic and Protestant, resorted to aggression and violence when their beliefs or practices were attacked. When King Louis XI exiled Antoine Farinier in 1478 for criticizing the wealthy, women threw rocks at the king’s emissaries.¹⁰ After a Calvinist church was established in Paris, 35 of 130 of those arrested were women.¹¹ As we turn to the portrayal of Mary Magdalene in the Middle Ages, understanding how sermons described her must be as nuanced as Bynum calls for in her work. Modern scholars have shown that the pedestal can be as dangerous as the pit, and that reducing such a powerful figure either to a feminist icon or a whore is both unhelpful and misleading.

The problem of misogyny is one of essentialization, but I dispute its universality in medieval society and culture. My reading of sermons has convinced me that a full range of attitudes toward women was expressed from the pulpit. Condemnation was common, but it should not be overlooked that this occurred in representations of men as well. A study of the prototypical ‘prostitute and harlot saint,’ Mary Magdalene, shows precisely how “fleshed out” representations of women could be. In the sermons of the fourteenth through the early sixteenth centuries, Mary Magdalene is no longer Woman with a capital W. Instead, like many actual women, she occupied a constantly changing gray area. Although her early life (according to legend) was characterized by sexual frivolity and the end of her life exemplified great holiness, the preachers depicted the period in between as a time of transition as Mary grew from a young woman questioning herself and her earlier life to her conversion and, ultimately, embarkation on a preaching mission to Gaul. They portrayed her as an individual endowed with physical characteristics, a psychological persona, and qualities that partook neither wholly of good nor of evil. She is not static, but always becoming. For one moment in time—a moment I believe was made possible by the style, content, and philosophy of late-medieval mendicant preaching, Mary Magdalene became a real-life woman, someone worthy of both blame and praise. From playful, frivolous, and lusty, she became increasingly vulnerable, a faithful if not the most faithful follower of her Lord. As first witness to the Resurrection (Jn 20:16), according to legend, she became an assertive and eloquent preacher of the Good News in foreign lands.

For all of its deficiencies, late-medieval preaching brought sermons down to the level of ordinary people, and the preachers who delivered them, mostly Franciscans and Dominicans, experienced women and men daily in a context that defied simple categorization. The reification of biblical characters owed a great deal to the mendicant ethos, which allowed for use of legend, theatrics, and the dramatic evocations of holy and unholy models in an effort to teach right belief and morality. By ‘giving lines’ to Mary Magdalene and imbuing her with emotions and reactions, the unreal (or at least intangible) was made real for the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Routledge frontiers of political economy
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Table of Abbreviation
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Where Sacred Meets Secular—The Many Conflicted Roles of Mary Magdalene
• Part I Mary Magdalene's Roles in Development
• Part II Mary Magdalene's Roles in Tension
• Part III Mary Magdalene's Roles in Action
• Part IV Mary Magdalene's Proto-Feminist and Other Subversive Roles
• Bibliographical Note
• List of Contributors
• Index