Proving Woman (30 page)

The trial of the Guglielmites is something of a showcase for just how the inquisitional procedure assisted in forging newlinks
between saint and heretic. As a result of this conflation, the proceedings in their entirety read very much like a canonization
gone wrong. The inquisitor stands in the place of procurator, only in this inverted canonization his purpose is to vilify
as opposed to vindicate Guglielma’s
fama
as holy. He makes his case by interrogating her followers—witnesses to both her sanctity of life and her miracles. And indeed,
much of the interrogation, in terms of both questions and answers, would still be suitable for a genuine canonization process.
During Andreas’s first interrogation, for example, when asked how Guglielma conducted herself during her lifetime, he responds
that she lived a common life, sharing food, drink, and even clothing. Asked if he has ever heard of Guglielma’s having performed
miracles during her lifetime, he answers yes and goes on to describe them. Did she perform miracles after her death? he is
asked, and so on.
¹³⁰
The bitter irony of this dialogue is the cross-purposes of inquisitor and witness. The situation is framed in such a way that
many of the witness’s constrained, but genuine, attestations to Guglielma’s sanctity will ultimately contribute to the inquisitor’s
case for her heretical depravity.

Within the larger structure of this inverted canonization, another process unfolds: the sectarians’ struggle to manifest their
own recognition of Guglielma’s divinity. This initiative, which, faute de mieux, hugs the contours of a more conventional
case for sanctity, might be perceived as an opera buffa version of a legitimate process of canonization, if only its implications
were not so tragic. Thus we learn that Andreas journeyed to the court of Bohemia, first to verify that Guglielma was who she
said she was, but also intending to inform the king of his daughter’s demise, with some hopes of reimbursement for the money
expended in her honor. When the inquisitors asked whether the motive for the journey was to enlist the king in an attempt
to have Guglielma canonized, after some initial hedging Andreas eventually acknowledged that this was so. His demurral may
indicate that he had a very different kind of canonization in mind, the nature of which had to be concealed from the inquisitors
at all costs. Andreas, however, soon understood that framing his movements in terms of a conventional canonization was surely
the safest route. Not only was this framework comprehensible to the inquisitors, who were aware of the monks’ ambitions for
Guglielma, but since the investigation was still in its preliminary stages, they may not yet have understood fully where Cistercian
and sectarian aims parted company. So if one were to seek an important sponsor for the cult, who better than Guglielma’s father,
the king of Bohemia?
¹³¹
The fact that Andreas was accompanied by Myranus, chaplain to the Milanese church of Saint Firmus, lent a sheen of orthodoxy
to the mission. Unfortunately, the king had died, and they came away empty-handed.
¹³²

Guglielma’s supporters also recognized that miracles were essential to establishing her cult. This was problematical because
the miracles performed thus far had been less than impressive. Of the ones occurring in her lifetime, the most noteworthy
was Guglielma’s alleged reception of the stigmata—although the wounds were not visible at the time of her death, which was
surely a disappointment to her followers.
¹³³
But her active intervention on behalf of others was also thin. Andreas reported on the basis of hearsay alone that Guglielma
had cured someone of an unspecified eye problem and yet another person of a kind of ulcer (
fistula
), giving the names of the beneficiaries for these miracles. The crucial miracles after death, however, were lacking. When
asked directly about Guglielma’s prowess in this arena, Andreas demurred, responding that certain ladies claimed their prayers
to Guglielma were always answered. Another witness would volunteer that on several occasions, when suffering from an unspecified
illness, she had made a vowto Guglielma and experienced relief.
¹³⁴

But the best-attested miracle occurred during an after-dinner gathering at which Mayfreda made the memorable declaration that
Guglielma was the Holy Spirit incarnate. At a certain point in the evening Lady Carabella stood up and discovered three knots
in her belt that had not been there before: “and there was great wonder and murmuring among them. And many believed that this
was a great miracle, as did the witness.”
¹³⁵
To supplement this rather feeble showing, Andreas and Mayfreda may have resorted to staging miracles. The chaplain, Myranus,
heard that the brothers (
fratres
) had bound Andreas hand and foot to Guglielma’s tomb, but he was released with the saint’s intervention. Similarly, when
the brothers (
fratres
) attempted to catch Mayfreda, an angel was deployed in her defense, “drawing a bloody sword hither and thither.”
¹³⁶

The other standard accoutrements of a canonization were also in evidence. There were two overt feasts that the sectarians
celebrated alongside her orthodox advocates: the day of her death, which coincided with Saint Bartholomew’s Day (24 August)
and the day her body was translated to the Cistercian abbey, occurring at the end of October.
¹³⁷
Some of the sectarians added a covert third: Pentecost—the day set for her return, which also coincided with the day of her
birth.
¹³⁸
Andreas wrote the requisite vita that was pivotal to the dossier of every saint.
¹³⁹
Nor were the ritual aspects of the cult in abeyance. Mayfreda wrote and staged special litanies on Guglielma’s behalf.
¹⁴⁰
Songs were composed and sung in her praise.
¹⁴¹
Moreover, the Guglielmites went to considerable lengths, not to mention great expense, to acquire what they deemed to be appropriate
liturgical dress and paraphernalia. There were altar cloths, vestments, and implements for the mass made especially for Guglielma’s
altar.
¹⁴²
The sectarians were also careful to provide Guglielma with what they took to be the suitable trappings for her divinity. Garments
of gold cloth, covered by a sumptuous purple robe with silver clasps, were prepared for the body. Some of the devoted said
they believed that this costume was in readiness for when her relics were ceremoniously removed to Bohemia in anticipation
of the formal translation that usually follows official canonization, but others stated that this garb was prepared for Guglielma’s
imminent resurrection from the dead—an event that could occur any time within three to twelve years, depending upon whom you
consulted.
¹⁴³

The Guglielmites showed particular flair in their devotional habits.
¹⁴⁴
For instance, hosts were placed on her tomb and then devoutly eaten.
¹⁴⁵
Special care was taken of the saint’s body. About a month after the translation to Chiaravalle, Andreas removed Guglielma’s
cadaver from its casket and carried it into the church of the Cistercian lay brethren (
conversi
) where, in the presence of many clerics and laypersons, he devoutly washed it in water and wine. The liquid retained from
this ablution was to be used as chrism for anointing Guglielma’s devoted and was sent to Mayfreda for this purpose. (And we
are told that Mayfreda would go on to anoint many of the sick with this concoction.) In a gesture reminiscent of the loving
attentions showered on Elisabeth of Hungary’s body, Andreas carefully clothed Guglielma’s body in a shift of embroidered silk
(
camisia laborata
de sita
) and an alb made from a woolen scapular, donated by one of the monks.
¹⁴⁶
Certain other Guglielmite practices were more conventional, as, for instance, when Mayfreda proclaimed an indulgence to those
who visited Guglielma’s tomb—an exorbitant one that was explicitly compared to the famed plenary indulgence granted to crusaders.
¹⁴⁷

Finally, as if through a translucent screen, one can discern a third process: the orthodox efforts to have Guglielma canonized.
Her translation into the Cistercian church and the assignation of specific feast days are the clearest indications of this
ongoing endeavor. Moreover, it is mentioned in passing that images of Guglielma were hung in various churches throughout Milan.
¹⁴⁸
The inquisitional record is also replete with numerous references to monastic preaching about Guglielma’s merits and the monks’
sponsorship of various solemnities on her feast days.
¹⁴⁹
Indeed, the very zeal of Cistercian devotion fostered a decided symbiosis between the two different levels of veneration,
the nature of which makes it difficult to perceive where the one ends and the other begins. H. C. Lea, the great scholar of
the inquisition, is convinced that the monks’ complicity with sectarian devotion runs so deep that it is a marvel that none
of them is among the condemned.
¹⁵⁰
Yet I believe that the Cistercian “complicity,” although real, was probably contained within orthodox boundaries. It is true
that the Cistercians were very eager to have a saint. Some of this desire was doubtless prompted by the kind of mercenary
incentives that the chronicler Salimbene sneeringly attributed to the various sponsors of a recent pseudosaint, Albert the
Wine Carrier.
¹⁵¹
But such motives can and do coincide with a sincere awareness of the spiritual benefits that a saint can impart to the entire
region. A successful bid for the canonization of their patroness would necessarily founder, however, without the enthusiastic
support of the local community. Naturally the Cistercians were prepared to welcome fervent testimonials to the sectarians’
devotion, even if this meant overlooking certain excesses. Moreover, the Guglielmites were hardly the marginal riffraff frequently
associated with urban heresies: on the contrary, many were solid members of the citizenry, both wealthy and respected.
¹⁵²

The Guglielmites’ perception of their relationship with the monks was equally complex. The sectarians were dependent on the
orthodox cult for their own safety. Thus it is something of a surprise that the Cistercian cult is occasionally glimpsed through
a door opened by sectarian hostility. Some of this tension results from the rivalry that one might expect between the two
groups. With their penchant for drama, Andreas and Mayfreda may have capitalized on these tensions in the mock miracles they
staged, in which they are persecuted by certain “brothers”—a scenario alluded to earlier.
¹⁵³
More dire tensions between the two groups also arose, which could not be dispelled by mere playacting. Some of the sectarians
came to feel that excessive
Cistercian
devotion was responsible for attracting the unwelcome attention of the inquisition. This is certainly implied in a conversation
between Andreas and the tertiary Franciscan Girardus de Novazano, immediately following the latter’s interrogation. Girardus
warns Andreas to be careful, adding that “the brothers of Clairvaux were wrong to compare the aforesaid saint Guglielma to
the moon and stars in their preachings and to receive offerings and candles on behalf of Guglielma.”
¹⁵⁴
Only now were the sectarians realizing that, while the screen of zealous monastic devotion had hitherto kept them safe, the
time had arrived when it could only expose them to danger.

Hitherto I have been focusing on the accusations against the sectarians and the voluntary or involuntary complicity of the
monks. But this was Guglielma’s trial as well. Moreover, should she be found guilty, her body would be exhumed and burned,
while the monks, as her heirs, would doubtless have to forfeit her bequest.
¹⁵⁵
Various scholars have asserted that Guglielma herself was, in all likelihood, perfectly orthodox—a view that may well be correct.
¹⁵⁶
And yet when the two concurrent cults are viewed from the outside, and their very many points of contact fully appreciated,
one could legitimately suppose that Guglielma’s orthodox supporters had, in fact, mistaken a heretic for a saint. This might
have been the perspective of the inquisitors, who may have seen in the Cistercian veneration of Guglielma a misapprehension
akin to the one formed by the hapless canons supporting Armannus—a drama whose denouement was playing itself out in the very
same year further south. And, as with Armannus, there was even a rumor afoot that Guglielma had been summoned before the inquisition.
¹⁵⁷

But equally important is that by the end of their testimony, the heretical ringleaders had thoroughly implicated the (perhaps
involuntary) foundress of the sect in charges of heresy. Thus while Andreas, the sectarian most familiar with Guglielma, initially
denied both that Guglielma had ever told him that she was the Holy Spirit and that he had ever reported to anyone her having
said this, he would eventually confess that it was Guglielma herself who had made this claim. According to this later testimony,
Guglielma promised, in due course, to descend from the sky onto her marble tomb, amid thunder and lightning. Moreover, after
recapitulating the sectarians’ views, Andreas explicitly affirmed “that he received to a great extent the foundation of these
errors from Guglielma.” He was responsible only for the finishing touches to add “ornament and credulity to the aforesaid
errors.”
¹⁵⁸

There were other depositions supporting Andreas’s incrimination of Guglielma, which probably constituted sufficient corroboration
for the inquisitors, and Andreas is almost invariably associated with each of these testimonies.
¹⁵⁹
Andreas first told the sectarian Sibilia, for example, that Guglielma not only said she was the Holy Spirit but went on to
explain that, had she been born a male, she would have ended up dying just as Christ had, and the entire world would have
perished.
¹⁶⁰
According to the cleric Francischus de Garbagniate, Guglielma told Mayfreda and Andreas that after 1262 (the current year)
it would no longer be the body of Christ alone that was being consecrated at mass, but the body of Christ united with the
body of Guglielma, the Holy Spirit. As a result, Guglielma was indifferent to gazing at the reserved host or even attending
mass, devotions that she regarded as unnecessarily narcissistic. But once again, the sole sources for this story were Andreas
and Mayfreda.
¹⁶¹