Proving Woman (28 page)

Although infinitely more elaborate, the formal ritual of canonization is nonetheless possessed of an unmistakable correspondence
to the general sermon where the final sentencing of heretics occurs. According to the directives of Bernard Gui, the laity
are similarly summoned to an appointed place (usually a church) for the following morning in order to hear the sentences.
The inquisitor would be flanked by his counselors, paralleling the manner in which the cardinals clustered around the pope.
Even as the pope summarized the process, the inquisitor also gives a quick summary of the proceedings, concluding with the
conferral of indulgences (usually forty days) upon those in attendance. Next, penitential crosses are bestowed on individuals
guilty of relatively minor infractions.
⁷⁹
Only then are the penitents led from prison. Each penitent is asked to affirm his or her testimony, which is read in the vernacular—a
crude equivalent of the pope’s reciting proofs of sanctity before the sentence of canonization is passed. Then the faults
of individuals are recited in the vernacular, hierarchically in order of gravity: those who are assigned simple penance; those
who are to be imprisoned; those who, bearing false witness, will do penance and be imprisoned; priests and clerics who are
degraded and imprisoned; those who would have been degraded and imprisoned if they were alive; the impenitent dead who were
to be exhumed; fugitives who were condemned of heresy; those relapsed into heresy who finally abjured but must nevertheless
be relinquished to the secular arm; those who abjured heresy once but have subsequently relapsed or those who have never converted—first
laypersons, then clerics; then, adamant heretics or those who never confessed but were convicted by the weighty testimony
of others. Sentences of excommunication are then passed against fugitives or individuals whose cases are still in progress.
Finally, the houses belonging to heretics and therefore consigned to demolition are announced. Then follow the sentences—first
read in Latin, then in the vernacular, in a similar order to the one outlined above.
⁸⁰

Thus instead of the elevation of a single holy person, confirmed in God’s presence in heaven, we have a multitiered assembly
of sinners destined for different degrees of punishment. The exaltation of the saint’s merits corresponds to the systematic
ranking of penitents, according to their demerits. Moreover, the two rituals have parallel aftermaths: the remains of the
saint will be exhumed and solemnly translated by the bishop, usually in the holy person’s place of demise or native land;
the remains of the heretic will be exhumed and burned. The translation of a saint was invested with considerable drama. While
Saint Elisabeth of Hungary was officially canonized in Perugia by Gregory IX, the translation occurred in Marburg, where a
monastery had already been founded over her body. Frederick II (d. 1250), having only just quelled a rebellion, flew to the
tomb of his more worthy kinswoman so he, dressed in penitential gray, could assist in raising Elisabeth’s holy remains. In
anticipation of his arrival, the body was removed from the ground three days earlier and discovered incorrupt. The head was
temporarily separated from the body so the flesh and hair could be removed from the skull (“lest the sight strike horror in
the onlookers,” Caesarius of Heisterbach tells us—a comment somewhat at odds with the alleged miraculous state of preservation).
Before the head was restored, Frederick adorned it with a crown of precious stones.
⁸¹
The body was then placed in a lead casket and sealed with the seals of bishops and other prelates, with a number of religious
as witnesses. Some days after the translation, the sarcophagus was opened for the distribution of relics, and they were delighted
to find a sweet-smelling oil that emanated from the bones with the power to work miracles.
⁸²

The translation of heretics seems like a macabre parody of this ritual. William Pelhisson’s chronicle is punctuated by the
lurid procession through the town of exhumed bodies of heretics destined for burning.
⁸³
And just as a saintly relative was a boon beyond compare, even to a celebrated skeptic such as Frederick, so the posthumous
exhumation of a relative could destroy a family’s reputation, rob its members of their property, and elicit suspicions of
heresy. People naturally struggled to spare their relatives (and themselves) this ignominy.

CHANGING PLACES

I saw certain priests, even great men, in solemnities with

relics that they offered people to recognize and to proffer

kisses. I also heard them pronounce great indulgences

over these relics, for which they never saw nor heard of

any authorization from the pope or the diocesan bishop.

They say that these are the relics of some saint. And perhaps

it is the bones of some ass or of someone who is damned that they are calling relics.

(Henry of Langenstein)
⁸⁴

[Are] all the saints who are canonized by the church in

glory, or are some of them in hell?

(Thomas Aquinas,
Quodlibet
)
⁸⁵

What is to be learned from setting these two different kinds of inquests alongside one another? From an ideological perspective,
one cannot help but notice (and deplore) a bias which dictated that infinitely more care be taken, and considerably more resources
spent, on awarding sanctity to the one than according infamy and sometimes death to the many. The structural perspective is
equally rewarding: the alignment of the two procedures reveals howthe contours of a criminal trial were discernible in each.
Viewed as a unit, the canonization and the trials for heresy form something of a slippery ladder, with rungs extending in
opposite directions. Even as an ascent is generally more strenuous than a descent, so the aspiring saint might easily lose
his or her footing on the steps to canonization, winding up at the bottom with the heretic. But it would take a true miracle
for an individual to slip upward. The summary justice of the heretical trial versus the languorous pace of the canonization
could only increase the natural inclination toward descent.

Authorities seem to have been at least tacitly aware of the slippery potential of the procedural scaffolding. One of Aquinas’s
most intriguing (and possibly most perplexing) quodlibetal questions raised the possibility of a canonized saint’s being in
hell—a predicament that he ultimately declares impossible simply because God would not let it happen. But it is telling that
Aquinas does not pose (nor do I know of anyone who poses) a related question of at least parallel perplexity and of even greater
likelihood: what if the church formally consigned someone to hell—that is, condemned and executed them as heretical—when,
in fact, they were destined for heaven? What if the individual was not merely one of the saved but actually worthy of canonization?
Perhaps this version of the question too closely approximated certain heretical contentions about the posthumous standing
of their dead and, thus, was better not asked.

On the surface at least, the inquisitors responsible for assigning these categories were more scrupulous when it came to “saint”
than “heretic.” And the greater length of the process of canonization reflects this, thus raising the bar for sanctity. The
corresponding summary justice of the other process lowered the bar for heresy—reflecting a clear preference to err on the
side of caution over permitting the guilty to escape. These divergent trends complement papal policy that strove to limit
the number of saints but to eradicate all persons suspected of heresy. Yet the relative duration and rigor of the respective
procedures were just epiphenomena that corroborated the general effects of the prevailing structure. The mechanism of
inquisitio
was designed to incriminate—a legacy still palpable today in countries like France, which retain a form of inquisitional process
and hence begin with the assumption that the accused is guilty until proven innocent. When the
inquisitio
was applied to heresy, the tendency toward incrimination would far outweigh the tendency toward exculpation.

This inexorable valence of incrimination pertains even when the inquest is not directed by the harsh strictures of summary
justice associated with conventional heretical tribunals, as the extremely protracted inquest initiated by Count Raymond VII
of Toulouse seems to indicate. Raymond was embroiled in a struggle to secure a Christian burial for his heretically sympathetic
father, Raymond VI (d. 1222), whose body had long remained unburied.
⁸⁶
The son claimed that his father had repented on his deathbed. A procurator was appointed to plead this case in Rome, and Raymond
even managed to secure Louis IX’s support for his cause. (Efforts to obtain a church burial for a known heretic theoretically
incurred the penalty of excommunication. By assisting in this suit, the future regal saint could theoretically have forfeited
his own right to a resting place in consecrated ground.) At the behest of Gregory IX, a series of papal inquests dating as
far back as 1230 had already been undertaken. Innocent IV reopened the case in 1247, making the point in his letter of commission
that clear signs of penitence are sufficient to lift the stigma of excommunication should death intervene before the penitent
is absolved.
⁸⁷
But Raymond’s petition was at length denied later in the same year, the verdict being that the father had never recanted.
This decision was reached in spite of the fact that Raymond VI left substantial bequests to the Templars and Hospitallers
of Toulouse in his will of 1218, expressing his intention of entering the latter order before he died; twice visited a church
for prayer on the day of his sudden death; and communicated on his deathbed. Moreover, no fewer than 120 witnesses were produced
at the inquest to attest to the count’s charity and orthodox piety. Although the son’s suit on behalf of his father was defeated,
the case was never entirely put to rest. Nor was the body: neither buried nor burned, the corpse was left to rot in the house
of the Hospitallers.
⁸⁸

When the
inquisitio
is turned to purposes of canonization, moreover, it is hardly surprising that the holy candidate should frequently be found
wanting.With the hermeneutics of suspicion procedurally tuned to a very precise pitch, it was the rare individual (even within
that very rarefied group possessed of any credible claims to sanctity) whose miracles, or even whose virtues, could remain
entirely intact. In the case of women, their claims to sanctity had traditionally been associated with their bodies, usually
through the preservation of their virginity. With the female mystics of the later Middle Ages, who were more prone to somatized
miracles, the burden of proof continued to be located in the female body—a characteristic that channeled the evidence for
their sanctity into new quasi-medical, anatomical examinations. Yet such somatized evidence often proved incapable of withstanding
this level of scrutiny. A fledgling cult would often founder at the preliminary inquest.

The cult of Elena d’Oglio (d. 1520) is a case in point. Elena was a Bolognese matron, a generous benefactress of the church,
and her cult was zealously promoted by her confessor, Peter of Luca. The vita Peter wrote on Elena’s behalf, which was addressed
to Leo X, claims that she remained a virgin throughout her twenty-nine years of marriage—only one of the many parallels that
associated her with the Virgin Mary.
⁸⁹
But this ascetic feat is rendered positively banal by comparison with the various claims Peter made for other aspects of her
life. Elena was allegedly born in Constantinople, daughter of the emperor of the Turks and a Christian mother. She was transported
to Bologna through the ministration of angels.
⁹⁰
(Thus Peter proposed that a substantial part of her body should be returned to Constantinople, while the head and breast should
be sent to Rome. Only a modest amount would be reserved for Bologna.)
⁹¹
Possessed of the spirit of prophecy, she was also capable of penetrating the secrets of others and knowing events at a distance.
⁹²

Elena’s alleged sanctity was also manifested in numerous somatic ways. In 1507, Christ removed her heart and replaced it with
something quite different. According to Peter, the doctor who examined her corpse, “carefully drawing her viscera aside, found
indeed I do not know what in the place of the heart, but without doubt, it was very far from a true heart in shape, color,
firmness, and hardness.”
⁹³
Peter later goes on to claim that Elena lived without a heart altogether, a miracle he believed entirely unparalleled in the
annals of the church.
⁹⁴
She often experienced considerable pain in her chest—a phenomenon that was construed as corresponding to Christ’s wounds.
⁹⁵
A sweet odor would issue from Elena whenever she received communion or when (in the days when she still had her heart) she
experienced the burning heat of love in her breast.
⁹⁶
Her lifelong virginity was attested to and rewarded by divine lactations, wherein celestial milk filled her virginal breasts.
Indeed, after her death, this fluid poured forth so abundantly from both breasts that her followers eagerly quaffed the celestial
cocktail for several days.
⁹⁷

But Elena’s cult was destined to remain local. Part of the problem was that Peter had clearly aimed too high, making elaborate
claims for his holy penitent that stretched even the generous credulity of that age. Moreover, her case seems to have been
caught in some of the cross fire exchanged between different groups of religious. Elena’s cult had the supgna: port of the
Lateran canons of the church of San Giovanni in Monte, of which Peter was the prior. It was here that Elena had built a chapel
dedicated to Saint Cecilia and here that she was ultimately buried.
⁹⁸
But a medical examination of the body was conducted to verify its state of preservation and the presence of the miraculous
milk. The results were conflicted. While a number of experts were prepared to credit the claims of the canons, the Dominicans
were hostile to Elena’s cult, and their doctor claimed that the miraculous milk was, in fact, pus resulting from a tumor of
sorts.
⁹⁹
Elena’s pain, the bizarre organ that took the place of her heart, and perhaps even the sweet odor were not signs of a celestial
grace but symptoms of a terrestrial pathology.