Proving Woman (13 page)

The contrasts between the tale of orthodox martyrdom that ends book 1 and the heretical martyrdom of book 2 are striking.
Unlike the anonymous Christian martyr whose unspecified locale imparts a kind of timelessness, the heretical counterpart is
rendered with the exactitude of an inquisitional record: the heretic was named Aegidius (Giles) Boogris, literally “the Bugger”—a
derogatory term for heretic; he lived near Cambrai; the inquisition was being conducted by the Dominicans; he hid in the church
of Saint Aicradus (who had a reputation for casting out demons) in the city of Asper, which was subjected to Cambrai.
⁹³
Indeed, this level of detail has permitted Charles Homer Haskins to speculate that the anecdote might belong to the purge
of Cambrai in 1235 by the infamous Dominican inquisitor Robert le Bougre (likewise “the Bugger,” himself a reformed heretic).
⁹⁴
In contrast to the Christian of book 1, who, wounded by virtue of his commemorative grieving and his faith, experiences a
double martyrdom, the heretic of book 2 endures a double exposure as a sham. While the fidelity of the Christian’s devotion
is fittingly revealed by a pagan ruler, in keeping with the martyrs of the early church, the infidelity of the heretic is
just as fittingly disclosed and punished by an avenging cleric, in keeping with rising inquisitional practice. Moreover, from
a theological perspective, the heretic never had a legitimate claim to the title of martyr, for, as the epigraph from the
Glossa ordinaria
makes clear, “there is no place for true sacrifice outside the catholic church.” This view is resoundingly seconded by authorities
like Aquinas, who explicitly denies that a heretic’s steadfastness in his or her beliefs could be an act of faith.
⁹⁵
To William of Auvergne, the very joy with which heretics met death is a kind of dementia.
⁹⁶
But the heretic described in
Concerning
Bees
was not afflicted in this way, and his cowardly ruse forfeits even the simulacrum of a dignified death. And with this inverted
martyrdom,
Concerning Bees
comes to a close.

Female spirituality in the High Middle Ages would evolve along the subtle contours of displacement or reappropriation of heretical
claims outlined by James of Vitry and, especially, Thomas of Cantimpré. Through their often voluntary pain and suffering,
women would effectively become living martyrs who, by virtue of this anomalous state, already had a foothold in the hereafter.
Their honorary role as living dead was enacted in a number of dramatic ways. As the work of Caroline Walker Bynum suggests,
there was a very real sense in which these women were relics before their time.
⁹⁷
The representations of Thomas of Cantimpreé make an especially strong case for the precociously cultic status of these women:
the blood from the side of the nameless holy woman of
Concerning Bees
was saved, and presumably venerated, during her lifetime; Mary of Oignies obligingly yanked out a hunk of her hair to cure
a friend; Lutgard oozed oil from her fingertips and, as we have seen, experienced a miraculous flow of blood.
⁹⁸
Furthermore, in keeping with the model of the mystical biography of Mary by James of Vitry, all of the women discussed by
Thomas were the recipients of ecstasies or raptures—a condition that generally effected a degree of immovability and insensibility
that had much in common with death.
⁹⁹
Although saints had always, in a certain sense, been “dead to the world,” this was a much more literal assumption of the status
of the dead by the living. Moreover, hagiographical tradition evinced any number of instances wherein the bodies of the holy
dead had continued to exhibit signs of animation, as, for instance, a freedom from bodily corruption or signs of rejuvenation
in complexion.
¹⁰⁰
Although such miracles are not lacking in Thomas’s works,
¹⁰¹
what is especially striking are his attempts to reverse this predictable topos. Thus holy living bodies simulate the kinds
of marvels and miraculous imperviousness associated with the remains of the holy dead, blurring the boundaries between the
two conditions.

In addition to advancing these women’s spooky status as animated relics, James and Thomas are also eager to consolidate their
tentative hold on sanctity by anticipating their death and their bodies’ instantaneous accession to the status of more conventional
relics.
¹⁰²
In so doing, the women would transcend the inevitable procedural delays that would be imposed by the new requirement of papal
canonization introduced by Lateran IV. This very projection beyond official approval was doubtless intended to act as a self-fulfilling
prophecy that would entirely forestall sticky questions of papal ratification. We know from the celebrated letter of James
of Vitry in which he describes his encounters with various contemporary religious movements that he had kept a finger of the
deceased Mary of Oignies as a relic.
¹⁰³
Thomas additionally reports that James lent Mary’s finger to Hugolino of Ostia before the latter had ascended the papal throne
as Gregory IX. The relic had the desired effect of freeing Gregory from the spirit of blasphemy, which had led him to the
brink of apostasy.
¹⁰⁴

But Thomas’s intense fervor also leads him into an entirely different register of enthusiasm, in which he anticipates an individual’s
future value as relic while the person is still alive. Thus Thomas, perhaps unconsciously desiring to outdo James’s custody
of a mere finger of the latter’s spiritual mother, Mary of Oignies, privately negotiates with the abbess of Aywie`res to have
Lutgard’s hand after she has died. When Lutgard hears of this, she is depicted as surprised and not entirely pleased. Calling
Thomas to her side, she tells him he cannot have the entire hand, but only the little finger of her right hand, which he does
eventually obtain. A vigorous defense of an individual’s right to garner relics
of the recent
dead
then ensues. But although Thomas begins with the early instance of Natalia’s almost instant appropriation of the arm of her
martyred husband, Adrian, it is contemporary examples that really arrest his interest: James of Vitry took possession of Mary’s
finger, which, in turn, benefited Gregory IX. Likewise, zealous supporters allegedly cut off the index finger of Elisabeth
of Hungary the moment she died.
¹⁰⁵
Thomas further reports that the value of Mary of Oignies’s cadaver was eagerly calculated during her lifetime. When Mary reproaches
Prior Giles for knocking out the teeth of a recently deceased holy person, and Giles responds with the teasing assurance he
will do the same to her when she dies, the saint correctly predicts that she will thwart his efforts by shutting her jaw tightly
after her death.
¹⁰⁶

The preoccupation with living women as relics refuted heretical skepticism with a vengeance. This refutation represented much
more than a simple reaffirmation of the cult of saints; it constituted a vigorous reappropriation of some of the power of
martyrdom that had gone over to the heretics who, like the martyrs of the early church, suffered cruel death at the hands
of hardened executioners. Martyrs, orthodox or heretical, share this space with their classical prototype, Antigone. But there
is an interim stage prior to death that is potentially more powerful still. As psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan has suggested,
from the moment that Antigone defied the law by attempting the burial of her brothers, her life was forfeit and she was essentially
a dead woman. Antigone thus assumes a position that Lacan has characterized as “between two deaths,” wherein, although still
physically alive, she is dead to the symbolic order. The manner of Antigone’s death is but an enactment of her indeterminate
state: she is immured in a tomb while she is still alive.
¹⁰⁷

Heretical defiance in the face of the church’s strictures was a corridor to that nebulous zone that existed between two deaths:
the interim spanning condemnation and execution. It was during this ephemeral period that the heretic’s courage captured the
imagination of the laity. The somatic spirituality of orthodox women allowed them to inhabit this zone on a more permanent
basis. Their disintegrating bodies kept them suspended between life and death. Moreover, so compelling a simulation of death
in life was accompanied by the daring, but tacit, contention that these women were not just symbolically dead but were as
good as dead—as efficacious and potent as the saints who had already departed this life. The theological implications of this
position were staggering. It will be seen below that these women were depicted as possessing an ability to work miracles and
a power to intervene beneficently in the spiritual destinies of both the living and the dead. This impressive intermediary
role seemed to suggest a precocious but constant access to God’s presence—a privilege traditionally reserved for the holy
(and wholly) dead. Therefore, the women who constituted this elite corps were being presented as already worthy of veneration
during their lifetimes. Their formidable intermediary function, their status as living relics in the present, and the anticipation
of their cadavers as traditional relics in the future all served as vehicles for affirming the attainment of a kind of realized
eschatology.

Such claims, unvoiced yet adamant, seem to fly in the face of the Western tradition of sanctity. Shaped by a powerful group
of bishops, who were ever jealous of any living, charismatic rivals, the episcopal philosophy has been eloquently summarized
by Peter Brown as “Call no man holy until he be dead.”
¹⁰⁸
Moreover, even the merest whisper of such claims on behalf of a living person was a still more flagrant challenge to Lateran
IV, which had formally declared that no relics should be publicly venerated without papal sanction.
¹⁰⁹

But the threat of heresy was very real, making these desperate times. And James and Thomas—as hagiographical innovators, or
perhaps even desperados—were fully equal to the situation. They clearly believed themselves to be observing the spirit of
Lateran IV, if not the letter. From a certain perspective, their lofty claims on behalf of these women were at one with the
papal desire to supervise the burgeoning cult of saints, which was at least partially motivated by the very real danger that
the heretical “holy” might be mistaken for and worshiped as orthodox. James of Vitry and Thomas of Cantimprésimilarly had
their eyes trained on heretical threats, particularly Catharism. The members of the Perfect class of Catharism, individuals
who had received the
consolamentum
at a robust stage in their life cycle rather than on their deathbed, were on the verge of finishing their last baleful incarnation.
They were, as their name suggests, perfected, completed, thereby already advanced beyond this world, achieving a distinct
foothold in the next. The Cathar
credentes
could gaze in awe upon the completion of the Perfect—their spiritual perfection and what this symbolized. The
credentes
“worshiped” the Perfect whenever they encountered them, making a ritual bow of self-abasement known as the
melioramentum
. James and Thomas aspired to provide orthodoxy with something as contemporaneous, mundane, and yet as potentially otherworldly
as the Cathar Perfect.

At the same time, however, one must be aware of the extent to which James and Thomas were effecting something of a trompe
l’oeil. The women may have been worthy of veneration during their lifetimes. However, their lives were written and circulated
only after their demises, a felicitous sequence that provided something of a safety valve. From this perspective, James of
Vitry’s response to Fulk’s request for examples of orthodox saints to refute heresy is instructive: “ ‘I did not agree to
entrust to writing the virtues and deeds of those who are still alive, because they could in no way endure it.’ ”
¹¹⁰
Behind his strategic deference to the modesty of these women lurks James’s solid sense of what is due to orthodoxy.

WOMEN AND PURGATORIAL JUSTICE

Over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries purgatory would become the linchpin for the entire penitential system.
To deny its existence went much further than to challenge the connection between an individual’s earthly penance and otherworldly
suffering. It was tantamount to rejecting the entire system of divine justice which posited that the actions of the living
could benefit the dead. What was at issue was not just requiem masses and alms, offerings that were extremely lucrative to
the church. Also in the balance was the status of vicarious suffering. The contention that an individual was permitted to
suffer on behalf of another had to be protected, since the opposite contention could ultimately undermine the efficacy of
Christ’s passion on behalf of humanity.
¹¹¹

Holy women’s status as living dead made them especially qualified to rebut heretical skepticism concerning the existence of
purgatory by operating as emissaries and vicarious sufferers for its inhabitants.
¹¹²
Moreover, the ease with which female mystics communicated with the next world during their own lifetimes augured well for
what they might accomplish for humanity when, on the other side of the grave, they were permanently admitted to the divine
presence. James of Vitry had already depicted Mary of Oignies as possessed of an intense compassion for the souls suffering
in purgatory, coupled with a prescience that permitted her to penetrate the destination of deceased souls and frequently intercede
on their behalf.
¹¹³
Thomas of Cantimpréwould further develop this quintessential female gift in his own hagiographies. Hence his supplement to
the life of Mary presents the saint as providing an extensive disquisition on the nature of purgatorial fire.
¹¹⁴
Lutgard is privy to the purgatorial destiny of any number of souls, including ecclesiastical luminaries like Innocent III
and James of Vitry.
¹¹⁵
Moreover, Lutgard undertook a seven-year fast on behalf of sinners, both living and dead, at Christ’s behest. According to
Thomas’s supplement to her life, Mary of Oignies would attest on her deathbed to the effectiveness of Lutgard’s great intercessory
effort, describing Lutgard as a great liberator of souls from purgatory.
¹¹⁶
This aptitude is shared by a number of women depicted in his later work
Concerning
Bees
.
¹¹⁷