Proving Woman (17 page)

⁶⁸
VMO
, p. 565; trans. King, pp. 80–81. James also notes that, just before Mary died, he was preparing to preach the Crusade against
heretics and sign the crusaders with the customary crosses (
VMO
, p. 569; trans. King, p. 93). Cf. the rhetoric of martyrdom in connection with the Albigensian Crusade in
SVMO
, p. 574 (bis); trans. King, pp. 7, 9. Thus when describing the general slaughter under Simon de Montforte, at least one manuscript
of the thirteenth-century monkish chronicler Albric adds James of Vitry’s account of Mary’s vision of the crusaders’ glorified
souls, alongside their angelic escort (
Albrici monachi Triumfontium Chronicon
ann. 1211, ed. P. Scheffer-Boichorst,
MGH SS
, 23:892). Also see ann. 1213, p. 897, regarding Mary’s death.

⁶⁹
See n. 13, above.

⁷⁰
On the early worship of martyrs and confessors, see Hippolyte Delehaye,
Sanctus: Essai sur
le culte de saints dans l
’
antiquit
è
, Subsidia Hagiographica, 17 (Brussels: Bollandists, 1927), pp. 74–75, 109–21; P. Ranft, “The Concept of Witness in the Christian
Tradition,”
Revue B
è
n
è
dictine
102 (1992): 11–12. I am indebted to Ian Forrest for this latter reference.

⁷¹
See Jennifer O’Reilly, “ ‘Candidus et Rubicundus’: An Image of Martyrdom in the ‘Lives’ of Thomas Becket,”
AB
99 (1981): esp. 305–6. My thanks to Henry Mayr-Harting for this reference.

⁷²
Gregory the Great,
Dialogues
3.26, ed. Adalbert de Vogué,
SC
, no. 260 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1980), 2:370–71; trans. O. J. Zimmerman,
FC
, 39 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1959), pp. 160–61; cf. Gregory of Tours’s comment “By resisting vices you
will be considered a martyr” (as cited in Raymond Van Dam’s introduction to his translation of Gregory of Tours,
Glory of the Confessors
[Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1988], p. 11). Ranft points out that the concept of confessor saint emerges soon after
the original meaning of martyr begins to mutate (“The Concept of Witness,” pp. 12–13).

⁷³
Caesarius of Heisterbach,
Dialogus miraculorum
8.69, 2:139–40, trans. Scott and Bland, 2:70–71; Vauchez,
Sainthood
, pp. 152–53 n. 34. See Beryl Smalley,
The Becket Con
fl
ict and the
Schools: A Study of Intellectuals in Politics
(Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1973).

⁷⁴
Cf. Caroline Walker Bynum’s statement: “The holy bodies so central in late medieval piety are, exactly in their peculiar
conjunction of exuding and closure, liminal (that is transitional) between life and death” (“Bodily Miracles and the Resurrection
of the Body in the High Middle Ages,” in
Belief in History: Innovative Approaches to European and American Religion
, ed. Thomas Kselman [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991], p. 71).

⁷⁵
VMO
, p. 552; trans. King, p. 22.

⁷⁶
VMO
, p. 548, trans. King, pp. 4–5; cf. p. 549, trans. King, p. 10. Later, he anticipates the mockery of clerics who only sit
around reading Gratian (
VMO
, p. 564; trans. King, p. 76). Cf. Thomas’s similar denunciations of hostile Christians in
VLA
, p. 197, trans. King, p. 35;
VLA
, p. 205, trans. King, p. 79. James does not, however, eschew associations with the traditional confessor saints: a reference
to Jerome’s
Vitae patrum
and Gregory the Great’s
Dialogues
appears in the first chapter (
VMO
, p. 547; trans. King, pp. 1–2).

⁷⁷
VMO
, p. 548; trans. King, pp. 5–6.

⁷⁸
VMY
, p. 129; trans. King, p. 61. Margot King notes that there are other subtle allusions to Agnes in Margaret’s life. See her
translation of
VMY
, p. 67 n. 22; p. 81 n. 91.

⁷⁹
VLA
, p. 192 (bis); trans. King, pp. 6, 7. See King’s comments on pp. 116–17 n. 38 and p. 117 n. 39. See Roisin,
L
’
Hagiographie cistercienne
, p. 190. Cf. the very similar vision received by one of Thomas’s penitents, a woman from Brabant who was severely tempted
by demons for love of a certain man. Christ sang her a little love song in the vernacular and her temptation disappeared (
De
apibus
2.27.25, pp. 555–57).

⁸⁰
VLA
, p. 200; trans. King, pp. 50–51. Thomas is also careful to note that there were two witnesses to this marvel, in addition
to the scar that remained on Lutgard’s body. This miracle coincided with yet another: Lutgard ceased to menstruate, though
she was only twenty-eight, thus escaping “the nuisance with which God tamed pride in the sex of Eve.” An unnamed priest temporarily
partook of Lutgard’s mental image of herself as bespattered with blood (
VLA
, pp. 200–201; trans. King, pp. 52–53).

⁸¹
See Yves Dossat, “Le ‘bu ê cher de Montségur’ et les bu ê chers de l’inquisition,”
Cahiers de
Fanjeaux
6 (1971): 370–73. Dossat sees this kind of summary process as antithetical to the more fully developed procedure of later
papal inquisitors.

⁸²
William of Puylaurens,
Chronique
c. 44, pp. 172–75. Dossat argues that the actual burnings occurred not at Montségur but at Bram (see “Le ‘bu ê cher de Montségur,’
” pp. 365–69; and Lambert,
The Cathars
, pp. 167–69). Cf. the slaughter of eighty
credentes
that occurred at Agen in 1249 (William of Puylaurens,
Chronique
c. 46, pp. 184–85).

⁸³
De apibus
1.25.1, pp. 99–100.

⁸⁴
Ibid. 1.25.2, p. 100. The following section likens humankind to the harpy that killed Christ and then, upon seeing its own
human face in the water, never ceased to mourn him (1.25.3, pp. 100–101).

⁸⁵
Ibid. 1.25.4, pp. 101–2.

⁸⁶
Ibid. 2.25.5, p. 103.

⁸⁷
Ibid. 1.25.6, pp. 103–4.

⁸⁸
Ibid. 1.25.7, p. 105.

89 Ibid. 1.25.8, pp. 105–6. See Ignatius’s
passio
in James of Voragine,
Legenda aurea
, ed. Giovanni Maggioni (Florence: Sismel, 1998), 1:236–37; trans. William Granger Ryan,
The
Golden Legend
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), 1:143; cf. Vincent of Beauvais,
Speculum historiale
10.51, in
Speculum quadruplex; sive Speculum maius
(Douai: B. Belleri, 1624), 4:387–88.

⁹⁰
Gui,
Practica
5.2.8, pp. 255–56; trans.
WE
, pp. 402–4. Cf. Caesarius of Heisterbach’s observation (put in the mouth of the “novice” of his dialogue) that individuals
sometimes pretend to be possessed for profit (
propter quaestum
)—presumably receiving alms or other charities (
Dialogus
miraculorum
5.12, 2:291–92; trans. Scott and Bland, 1:332–33).

⁹¹
De apibus
2.57.68, pp. 592–93. ž

⁹²
See SlavojZžizžek’s reading of the appointment in Samarra in
The Sublime Object of Ideology
(London: Verso Books, 1989), p. 58. Zžizžek bases his analysis on Somerset Maugham’s rendition of the tale in his play
Sheppey
. The heretic’s complicity with his doom is even more clearly articulated in Jean Gobi’s later collection of exempla in which
the avenging demoniac cries out, “You believed you could evade the hands of the inquisitors by fraud, but I will perform the
office of the inquisitor,” in
La Scala coeli
, ed. Marie-Anne Polo de Beaulieu (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1991), no. 560, p. 408.
This anecdote is mistakenly attributed to James of Vitry. Also see Frederic Tubach,
Index Exemplorum: A Handbook of Medieval
Religious Tales
, Folklore Fellows Communications, no. 204 (Helsinki: Suodmalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1969), no.
2122.

⁹³
Saint Aichard was a seventh-century abbot of Jumi[egrave]ges who, fleeing from Viking persecution, went to Asper (John Molanus,
Natales sanctorum Belgii
[Louvain: Ioannes Masius and Philippus Zangrius, 1595], 15 September, fols. 203r–v). “Boogris” and its correlatives (the antecedent
of today’s “bugger”) is thought to derive from Bulgar, since Bulgaria was associated with the spread of Catharism. If this
was the individual’s nickname, it would seem that he was already notorious for his heretical beliefs, which would explain
his ruse. (William of Auvergne’s view that the heretic was by definition a demoniac of sorts, alluded to above, was a minority
view.) Thomas of Cantimpré’s editor, Colvener, also notes in a marginal gloss that other editions substitute Eligius for the
name Aegidius (
De apibus
, p. 593). This alternative name is also used by the sixteenth-century preacher Bernard Lutzenburg when he alludes to this
episode, referring the reader to Thomas (see Paul Fredericq’s
Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis
Neerlandicae
[Ghent: J. Vuylsteke; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889], no. 107, 1:106; cf. no. 29, 2:49). The substitution of Aegidius
for Eligius makes a certain amount of sense. Saint Eligius (or Eloi), the patron saint of goldsmiths, is particularly associated
with curing demoniacs (see Colvener’s endnotes in
De apibus
, p. 165 n. 68). But if the original name was, in fact, Eligius, this was as good as calling him “demoniac heretic.” Thus
the seeming historicity of the anecdote is also an encoded joke, and a rather obvious one at that. I am indebted to the Graduate
Medieval Church History Group at Oxford University (to which I presented part of this chapter in spring 2000) for their reflections
on the unfortunate heretic’s name.

⁹⁴
See Charles Homer Haskins’s essay “Robert le Bougre and the Beginnings of the Inquisition in Northern France,” in his
Studies in Mediaeval Culture
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1929), pp. 219–20, esp. p. 220 n. 5. On Robert’s alleged heretical background, see pp. 210–11 and Matthew
Paris’s account, excerpted in Fredericq’s
Corpus documentorum inquisitionis
, no. 116, 1:111–13. The
Breve chronicon Lobiense
specifically mentions Robert’s execution of heretics at Cambrai and Douai in 1235 (ibid., no. 94, 1:95). Also see chap. 5,
p. 229, below.

⁹⁵
Aquinas, quodlib. 6, q. 4, art. 1 [6], in
Opera omnia
, 25,2:300–302. For opposing views, see chap. 6, pp. 241–44, below.

⁹⁶
William of Auvergne,
De virtutibus
c. 21, in
Opera
, 1:186. Also see n. 65, above.

⁹⁷
Bynum,
Holy Feast
, pp. 122–28; eadem, “Bodily Miracles,” p. 71.

98
De apibus
1.25.7, p. 105;
SVMO
, pp. 574–75, trans. King, pp. 10–12;
VLA
, p. 195, trans. King, p. 19.

⁹⁹
VMO
, p. 548, trans. King, pp. 7–8; p. 551, trans. King, p. 18; p. 552 (passim), trans. King, pp. 22, 24, 25; p. 562, trans. King,
pp. 64–66; p. 565, trans. King, pp. 79–80; p. 567, trans. King, p. 87; pp. 568–69, trans. King, pp. 92–93. Christina’s raptures
are also alluded to in
VMO
, p. 548; trans. King, p. 9. Thomas of Cantimpréstrategically represents how men who had contact with Mary or her relics were
likewise the beneficiaries of mystical revelations (
SVMO
, p. 574, trans. King, p. 9; p. 578, trans. King, pp. 26–27). Also note the raptures in
VCM
, p. 653, trans. King, p. 10; p. 656, trans. King, p. 21; p. 657, trans. King, p. 23; p. 659, trans. King, p. 29;
VMY
, p. 110, trans. King, p. 22; p. 117 (bis), trans. King, pp. 35, 36; p. 118, trans. King, p. 39; p. 120, trans. King, p. 42;
p. 121, trans. King, p. 43; p. 122, trans. King, p. 46; pp. 123–24, trans. King, pp. 46–47; p. 123, trans. King, p. 49; p.
126, trans. King, p. 53;
VLA
, pp. 192–93, trans. King, p. 12; p. 193, trans. King, p. 16; pp. 200–201, trans. King, pp. 52–53; p. 204, trans. King, p.
72; p. 205, trans. King, p. 78; p. 206, trans. King, p. 84; p. 209, trans. King, p. 93.

¹⁰⁰
See Vauchez,
Sainthood
, pp. 427 ff.

¹⁰¹
Lutgard’s skin, for example, is described as lifelike after her death, while her eyes cannot be shut (
VLA
, p. 193; trans. King, pp. 94–95).

¹⁰²
See Bynum, “Bodily Miracles,” pp. 82–83.

¹⁰³
James implies that the finger preserved one of his pack mules, conveying many of his books, from drowning (
Lettres de Jacques de Vitry
, ep. 1, p. 72). Thomas claims that the relic was instrumental in saving James himself from a shipwreck (
SVMO
, pp. 578–79; trans. King, p. 27).

¹⁰⁴
Thomas of Cantimpré,
SVMO
, pp. 577–78, trans. King, pp. 22–24;
VLA
, p. 209, trans. King, pp. 98–99. Cf. Raymond’s terse pronouncement, alluded to in chap. 1, that he who doubts in faith is
an infidel. William of Rennes’s gloss on this passage, however, argues that if afflicted involuntarily by the spirit of blasphemy,
an individual is not considered sinful (
Summa de poenitentia
gloss u. ad v.
Dubius in
fi
de
1.5.10, p. 44). According to James of Vitry, Mary had a singular grace against the spirit of blasphemy. See her intervention
on behalf of a Cistercian nun (
VMO
, pp. 553–54, trans. King, pp. 29–32; also see p. 561, trans. King, p. 61).

¹⁰⁵
VLA
, p. 209; trans. King, pp. 98–99. There is no mention that Elisabeth’s finger was cut off, though her body was ravaged by
the pious (see chap. 3, p. 100, below). The right hand seems to be the preferred relic for Thomas. When the body of Saint
Theodulph was discovered in Trier, Thomas requested the saint’s right hand for his community (
De apibus
2.53.2, pp. 487–88).