Proving Woman (63 page)

⁷⁶
For Joan’s visions and the discernment of spirits, see William Christian, who uses Joan as something of a test case for later
Christian visionaries, in
Apparitions in Late Medieval Spain
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 188–94. Karen Sullivan posits that Joan did attempt something like
Gersonian discernment on her own revelations (
The Interrogations of
Joan of Arc
[Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999], pp. 33–35). Gerson’s exile was prompted by his condemnation of the murder
of the duke of Orleans by the Burgundians (see Connolly,
John Gerson
, pp. 164–67, 189–91).

⁷⁷
Gerson,
De puella Aurelianensi
(also known as
De mirabili victoria
), in
Oeuvres
, 9:661–62. This treatise has been partially translated by H. G. Francq, “Jean Gerson’s Theological Treatise and Other Memoirs
in Defence of Joan of Arc,”
Revue de l
’
Universite
é
d
’
Ottawa
41 (1971): 61–64. See Fraioli’s summary in
Joan of Arc
, pp. 22–44. She remains, however, circumspect as to its authorship.

⁷⁸
X.5.7.1. Cf. the epigraph in chap. 5, p. 212, above.

⁷⁹
Cf. his similar view if someone inadvertently supports the wrong side in the schism, n. 25, above.

⁸⁰
Gerson,
De puella Aurelianensi
, in
Oeuvres
, 9:662.

⁸¹
See chap. 4, p. 127 ff., above. Cf. Georges Peyronnet, “Gerson, Charles VII et Jeanne d’Arc: la propagande au service de
la guerre,”
Revue d
’
histoire eccl
è
siastique
84, 1 (1989): 344.

⁸²
Gerson,
De puella Aurelianensi
, in
Oeuvres
, 9:663. The
Distichs
was an anonymous collection of witty sayings, written sometime in the third century but attributed to Cato the Elder, which
was was wildly popular in university circles. The full epigraph is “When you live properly, don’t worry about the words of
evil men; / it is not necessary that we judge what everybody else says” (
Disticha Catonis
3.2, ed. Marcus Boas [Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1952], p. 154).

⁸³
Gerson,
De puella Aurelianensi
, in
Oeuvres
, 9:663.

⁸⁴
Gerson,
De puella Aurelianensi
, in
Oeuvres
, 9:664.

⁸⁵
Gerson,
De puella Aurelianensi
, in
Oeuvres
, 9:665. Gerson does not take advantage of the cross-dressing female saints in the hagiographic tradition, even though one
of Joan’s voices, Margaret, had availed herself of this strategy to avoid marriage—at least in one of the versions of her
tale cited in James of Voragine’s popular
Golden Legend
. See Marie Delcourt, “Le complexe de Diane dans l’hagiographie chrétienne,”
Revue de l
’
histoire des religions
143 (1958): 18–28; cf. Charles Wood,
Joan of Arc and Richard III: Sex, Saints, and Government in the Middle Ages
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 136–37.

⁸⁶
Gerson,
De puella Aurelianensi
, in
Oeuvres
, 9:665.

⁸⁷
De bono et maligno spiritu
is edited and translated by Noeïl Valois, “Un nouveau témoignage sur Jeanne d’Arc: réponse d’un clerc parisien a` l’apologie
de la pucelle par Gerson (1429),”
Annu-
aire-Bulletin de la Soci
è
te
é
d
’
histoire de France
43 (1906): 161–79. For dating, see p. 165. Also see Peyronnet’s discussion in “Gerson, Charles VII et Jeanne d’Arc,” pp. 358–59,
and Fraioli’s
Joan of Arc
, pp. 159–72.

⁸⁸
There is a record for 22 September 1429 that 8 sol. were paid for a copy of the treatise
De
bono et malino spiritu
[sic]. See Denifle, no. 2370, 4:515. Others have also recognized the application of Gerson’s method at Joan’s trial. See Sullivan,
The Interrogations of Joan
, pp. 33–34; Christian,
Apparitions
, pp. 92–93.

⁸⁹
Gerson,
De puella Aurelianensi
, in
Oeuvres
, 9:662.

⁹⁰
De bono
, p. 176. See X.1.1.1, X.1.4.9.

⁹¹
De bono
, p. 175. See X.5.7.12 (under the general rubric
De haereticis
). As Valois notes, this canon figured prominently in Joan’s process of condemnation (“Un nouveau témoignage,” p. 175 n. 3).
See the final deliberations of the doctors and masters of Rouen, in Tisset,
Proce`s
, 1:320.

⁹²
De bono
, p. 176. Out of the many canons cited supporting the contention against female cross-dressing, only the first is an explicit
anathema on the practice from the Council of Gangra (ca. 340). See Dist. 30 c. 6. The association between the assumption of
male dress and fornication is, interestingly, supported by Innocent III’s condemnation of a Spanish abbess who was performing
certain sacerdotal functions, such as hearing confession (X.5.38.10).

⁹³
De bono
, pp. 176–77.

⁹⁴
De bono
, pp. 177–78. Joan was repeatedly questioned about her raid on Paris, which occurred on the Virgin’s Nativity, at her trial
(Tisset,
Proce`s
, 1:53, 141, 267–68). For her part, Joan claimed that it was not a mortal sin, since she was confident that she would be aware
if she had committed one (1:152). The anonymous Parisian also takes note of Joan’s raid on the feast of Mary’s Nativity (
A Parisian Journal
ann. 1429, p. 240). Her judges also attempted to prove that she received inappropriate reverence (Tisset,
Proce`s
, 1:100, 101).

⁹⁵
De bono
, p. 178. In support of his indictment, the anonymous critic cites X.2.20.52 (which treats of the necessity of carefully examining
witnesses in processes of canonization) and the entire title for
De reliquiis et veneratione sanctorum
(X.3.45)—treating papal prerogative in canonization and forbidding a profligate display of relics. Joan denied that she had
anything to do with the circulation of these images, but she did admit to having seen one in the hands of a Scotsman (Tisset,
Proce`s
, 1:98–99, 261).

⁹⁶
De bono
, p. 178. This is not the first time that the anonymous author tangles with Gerson directly. Earlier, he taunts Gerson for
his use of Cato, arguing that if Gerson had read further, he would have been properly warned that one should be sparing in
one’s praises; he quotes the first line of this anonymous couplet: “Praise sparingly, for he whom you would often test [
probaris
]; / one day will reveal whether he is a friend.” It is appropriate, moreover, that in his citation, the anonymous author
uses a version that enlists the word
probare
(prove) over the more usual
laudare
(praise) (
De bono
, p. 176; see
Disticha
4.28, p. 228; and p. 229 for this less common version).

⁹⁷
De bono
, pp. 178–79. In support of bringing in an inquisitor, he cites VI.5.2.8, no. 4. The charge that Joan dripped wax on the children’s
heads in order to tell their fortunes also crops up at her trial (Tisset,
Proce`s
, 1:271).

⁹⁸
De bono
, p. 179. The completion of the sentence, which the author does not cite, is “when the disease has gained strength by long
delay” (Ovid,
The Remedies for Love
l. 92, in
Ovid: The Art
of Love and Other Poems
, trans. J. H. Mozley, 2d ed., Loeb Classical Library, Ovid, II [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979], p. 185).

⁹⁹
De bono
, p. 179. Gratian is invoking Jerome (C.24 q.3 c.16).

¹⁰⁰
In addition to
De puella Aurelianensi
(or
De mirabili victoria
), there is yet another treatise that is frequently linked with Gerson’s name, called
De quadam puella
. Among scholars who believe that Gerson wrote a defense, some prefer
De quadam
as his authentic work—at least partially owing to its greater ebullience. Still others posit that Gerson wrote both. See Peyronnet’s
discussion of the two treatises in “Gerson, Charles VII and Jeanne d’Arc,” pp. 339–47. He is more inclined to credit the authenticity
of
De puella Aurelianensi
.

¹⁰¹
See, for example, MarinaWarner’s skepticism in
Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism
(London: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981), p. 146.

¹⁰²
Dorothy Wayman, “The Chancellor and Jeanne d’Arc, February–July, A.D. 1429,”
Franciscan
Studies
18 (1957): 273–305. The treatises are appended to her article. Francq, who believes that both treatises were composed by Gerson,
translates
De quadam puella
in “Jean Gerson’s Theological Treatise,” pp. 74–89. For critiques of Wayman’s theory, see Peyronnet, “Gerson, Charles VII
et Jeanne d’Arc,” pp. 347–48; Francq, “Jean Gerson’s Theological Treatise,” pp. 70–72. Deborah Fraioli, however, finds Wayman’s
theory persuasive. See “The Literary Image of Joan of Arc: Prior Influences,”
Speculum
56 (1981): 813–14.

¹⁰³
Wayman, “The Chancellor and Jeanne,” p. 282.

¹⁰⁴
See Valois’s introduction to
De bono
, in “Un nouveau témoignage,” pp. 162 ff. Note that Gerson’s treatise was also appropriated for other purposes. Gertrude Merkle
argues that Martin Le Franc used it in the section on Joan in his
Champion des dames
(ca. 1440). See “Martin Le Franc’s Commentary on Jean Gerson’s Treatise on Joan of Arc,” in
Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc
, ed. Bonnie Wheeler and Charles Wood (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 177–88.

¹⁰⁵
The anonymous summary is edited by Jules Quicherat in
Proce`s de condamnation et de
r
è
habilitation de Jeanne d
’
Arc
(Paris: Renouard, 1847), 4:260. Gerson’s treatise is reissued on 3:298–306.

¹⁰⁶
Much of our information about the false Joan comes from the journal of the anonymous Parisian, which reports on how she was
brought to trial by the university and the parlement, though we do not learn of the outcome (
A Parisian Journal
ann. 1440, pp. 337–38). The documents on the false Joan have been gathered in Quicherat,
Proce`s de condamnation
, 5:321–36. According to Pierre Sala, writing in the early sixteenth century, the false Joan eventually achieved an audience
with Charles VII, in the course of which she broke into tears and confessed her ruse (4:281). For further discussion, see
A. Lecoy de la Marche, “Une fausse Jeanne d’Arc,”
Revue des questions
historiques
10 (1871): 562–82; Vauchez, “Jeanne d’Arc et le prophétisme,” pp. 166–67; idem,
The Laity
, pp. 262–63. Also see Boureau’s discussion of the possibility of a good and an evil Joan of Arc in
The Myth of Pope Joan
, pp. 177 ff.

¹⁰⁷
For a discussion of this concept, see Lacanian interpreter, Slavoj Žizžek,
Looking Awry: An
Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991), pp. 29–47; idem,
Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out
(New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 20–22. Note the extent to which the horrifying “double” is accommodated within this discourse.

¹⁰⁸
John Nider,
Formicarium
5.8 (Douai: B. Belleri, 1602), p. 383.

¹⁰⁹
Ibid., p. 386. This rarefied form of discernment seems to be a relatively common claim among holy women. See, for example,
De apibus
1.1.4, p. 5–6. On the attribution of parallel abilities to Joan, see chap. 6, pp. 255–56, above.

¹¹⁰
Nider,
Formicarium
5.8, p. 387. For Nider’s similar refusal to pass sentence on female spirituality, also with deleterious consequences, see
Dyan Elliott, “The Physiology of Rapture and Female Spirituality,” in
Medieval Theology and the Natural Body
, ed. Peter Biller and Alastair Minnis (Woodbridge, Suffolk: York Medieval Press in association with Boydell and Brewer, 1997),
pp. 170–72. Nider probably did not know Gerson’s treatise, but he seems

to have been familiar with the anonymous
On the Good and Evil Spirit
(see Denifle, no. 2370, 4:515).

Conclusion

But what of certain old women who say they see souls in purgatory while in rapture and many other things . . .whose feet do
not feel fire? Let it be stated that the devil directs fantasies into their imagination to such a degree that they feel nothing
on the outside.

(Bernard Basin,
On the Magic Arts
, ca. 1483)
¹

And Jesus wept.

(John 11.35)

OVER THE COURSE of the High and later Middle Ages, society had been forced to contend with any number of intense social and
cultural upheavals. Amid these tides of change, it was within the concept of proof that the clerical intelligentsia sought
safe harbor. Proof and its attendant methods came to represent security and stability to the church militant. Ultimately,
the mechanisms of proof were perceived as the most respectful and necessary procedures for discerning the pronouncements of
the church triumphant and establishing God’s will on earth. Latin Christendom’s preoccupation with proof expressed itself
through an ever expanding number of ingenious intellectual maneuvers and practical protocols. Among the church’s more prominent
initiatives were efforts to refine the sacramental system in order to prove doctrinal tenets against heterodox opponents;
the development of scholasticism to buttress the faith; and the cultivation of the inquisitional process—at first to discipline
the clergy, but very soon to reify and police the boundaries of orthodoxy through the appropriate designation of sanctity
and heresy.

The different agencies responsible for generating these proofs—be they theological circles, the university hierarchy, ecclesiastical
tribunals, or the papal curia—were all patriarchal in nature. As a matter of course, women were excluded from their deliberations.
Yet while denied the official role of purveyors and assessors of evidence, women nevertheless found themselves implicated
in the clergy’s machinery of proof for a time as living exempla of orthodox contentions. Such was the case in the early thirteenth
century when holy women were singled out as uniquely suited for “proving” the newly established sacramental system, one that
particularly highlighted auricular confession and the eucharist. And yet women were not being required to shoulder a thankless
burden: the potential rewards for women willing to serve in this propagandistic capacity were great. The confessional relationship,
in particular, a milieu conducive to the fostering and possible publication of the women’s mystical experiences, opened up
a new world of spiritual fulfillment. This relationship could afford women unprecedented intimacy with and respect from the
priesthood (whose members had also benefited from a sharp increase in symbolic power through the sacramental system, making
their attentions all the more meaningful), the possibility of public adulation, considerable impact on the local community,
and occasionally even a direct influence upon public life. And yet from the outset the path designated for these manifest
embodiments of proof was strewn with substantial risks. On the most fundamental basis, there were profound threats to a woman’s
physical well-being. The Beguine mystic was portrayed by her clerical sponsors as a kind of living martyr, someone who, by
virtue of her ongoing physical suffering, was already dead to the world—a stance intended to offset the stirring examples
of the many heretics who were prepared to be martyred for their faith. Among the most dramatic illustrations of the mystic’s
new interstitial role were the many somatic proofs that came to be closely identified with female spirituality. Yet however
rich the symbolic meaning of these proofs, there is no question that they were often physically debilitating, even life-threatening,
to the women in question. By the end of the Middle Ages, the wretched condition of the female body was among the most prominent
features of female sanctity. It is difficult not to pronounce against a religious culture that made this kind of suffering
one of the tacit conditions for celebrating the spiritual achievement of women.

But the danger of miraculous somatism was only one of the perils to which pious women might be subjected. The concurrent rise
of the sacrament of confession and the prominence of confession in disparate inquisitional tribunals were not discrete phenomena.
The relationship between Elisabeth of Hungary and her confessor, inquisitor Conrad of Marburg, is a telling enactment of some
of the ways in which the sacramental and inquisitorial fora could invade one another, at least on a disciplinary level: the
severity of Elisabeth’s pentitential practices contributed to her premature death, an occurrence inseparable from her subordination
to Conrad. But parallel relations between priestly inquisitors and female penitents, though rarely a match for Conrad’s unabashedly
brutal treatment of Elisabeth, were sometimes invested with still more dire implications. As the Fournier register reveals,
Auda was denounced for what was essentially a private religious crisis by her overscrupulous friend Ermengardis. In the course
of Auda’s subsequent relationship with the pastorally oriented inquisitor Bishop Fournier, not only did she confirm this denunciation;
she was further induced to denounce the several friends who were attempting to protect Auda from her own self-destructive
scrupulosity.

If it is difficult to separate the proofs implicit in female spirituality from a set of behaviors that were in many ways harmful
to the women in question, it is equally difficult to overlook the potentially pernicious effect of the propagandistic use
of holy women’s lives. For writers like James of Vitry and Thomas of Cantimpré, female mysticism and suffering alike were
enlisted to counteract heretical skepticism by supporting the nascent theology of purgatory. Not only did heretics balk at
the existence of purgatory, but many resisted the prerogatives of divine judgment altogether, instead positing salvation for
all. Women’s visions of beleaguered souls in purgatory and the vicarious suffering the women endured on behalf of these souls
were powerful refutations of heretical opposition. But one clear effect of such female interventions was to endorse not only
the system of divine justice but also its all too human correlatives operating in various terrestrial tribunals. The mere
existence of purgatorial suffering emphasized the utility of its mundane counterpart. This gradual purification of earthly
suffering could be used to vindicate the most severe disciplinary measures of ecclesiastical and secular tribunals, paving
the way for a still more autocratic and coercive church and state.

The deployment of women’s confessional and penitential practices was one of orthodoxy’s most subtle but, arguably, most powerful
campaigns against heresy. A more insistent and programmatic initiative entailed the application of the inquisitional process—most
strikingly to stigmatize instances of heresy, but also to distinguish cases of sanctity. This procedure had an inexorable
momentum toward criminalization: in certain celebrated instances, as with the cases of Armannus Punzilupus and Guglielma of
Milan, processes that had been undertaken in order to canonize a saint concluded with the condemnation of a heretic. By the
same token, the implacable procedures devised to stigmatize heretics often had the opposite effect, as when an outraged population
created “martyrs” from the inquisition’s alleged heretics—a predicament so poignantly demonstrated among the Beguins of southern
France. The reversals inherent in inquisitional procedure correspond to a similar propensity in the related field of scholasticism:
both formal proofs of the faith and arguments supporting the divine origin of a particular mystic’s revelations were subject
to quick overturnings and destabilization.

As the threat of heresy gradually receded, the climate hitherto favoring female spirituality likewise began to change. An
important index to this change is the way in which the spirituality of living women was progressively subjected to the rigors
of the
inquisitio
. Such processes were increasingly informed by a quasimedicalized discourse that tended to disparage women and pathologize
some of the most characteristic aspects of their spirituality, particularly the ill-health associated with divinely inspired
somatism or scrupulosity in confession. It is certainly significant that when a clerical discourse on spiritual discernment
eventually arose, it entirely discounted the proof of somatic changes as evidence of grace. Such antiquated arguments would
become the domain of lay magnates like Ercole d’Este, whose vehement efforts to defend his holy stigmatic, Lucia of Narni,
also convey the shock of recognition that he had overinvested in a stock that was on the decline. Furthermore, with the rise
of the discourse on spiritual discernment, the various factors gradually undermining female spirituality were brought into
sharp focus. John Gerson, whose own spiritual aspirations on behalf of the university fueled his antagonism toward female
spirituality, exemplifies this trend. Gerson had argued that the inquisitional procedure should not be reserved for heretics
and dead saints but should be brought to bear on contemporary female mystics. The sheer weight of Gerson’s authority, in conjunction
with the incisiveness and prolixity of his writings on discernment, set a formidable disciplinary mechanism in motion. As
Gerson was himself to learn, once mobilized, its momentum was unstoppable.

Many of the chilling trends isolated in this study are further illuminated in a revealing interpolation that occurs in a number
of manuscripts of Gerson’s treatise
On the Examination of Doctrine
, supplanting the usual conclusion. Under the rubric “the example of the seduction [practiced] by a certain woman in 1424,”
a trial, the proceedings of which had allegedly been read before the clergy at Lyons, is recounted. A female mystic, who “under
the cover of devotion and revelations feigned marvels,” was arrested in the French city of Bourg-en-Bresse. The woman claimed
that she was one of five women sent to redeem souls from hell (we can only speculate about the identities of the other four).
Around three souls per day were released through her efforts—two quite easily, the third with great difficulty and pain. Apparently,
she alleged the presence of hot coals at her feet that would afflict her whenever a soul was sentenced to hell. The woman
was further possessed of the ability to see the sins of individuals simply by gazing at their foreheads—an effect that Augustine
notes could be wrought by the devil, as the author of this report hastens to add. Her numerous ecstasies were replete with
many marvelous revelations. Moreover, she had already established a large following among the “simple little women” of the
area. Finding this situation unacceptable, “the nourishing spirit of the holy church, the true rector,” decided to expose
“this false spirit” through the following course:

This woman was seized and abandoned to penalties so that she was tortured, and she then confessed all the truth—how she feigned
the aforesaid things from cupidity . . . or perhaps she dedicated herself to the devil in this kind of wretched servitude.
And she was discovered to have the falling sickness, and hid it under the ecstatic excesses that she feigned.

Opinions varied as to whether she should be condemned as a heretic. But it was eventually decided “by the learned” that she
was not a heretic since she was not obdurate. Hence she was admitted to penance.
²

It is unclear who added this episode and why.
³
The fact that the anonymous mystic’s trial purportedly occurred in 1424—the year after the completion of Gerson’s treatise,
would seem to preclude its presence in its earliest version. Although it is possible that Gerson himself appended this trial
at a later date, it seems doubtful. Stylistically, the account lacks Gerson’s polish and rhetorical flare—not to mention Gerson’s
own predilection for painting himself into his own contemporary tableaux. This account was added at the end of the treatise.
Therefore it is by no means certain that the interpolator was hoping to pass the exemplum off as part of Gerson’s original
composition. Yet there can be little doubt that the author believed himself to be writing in the spirit of Gerson. Instead
of the alternative conclusion, which had summarized the treatise’s chief points, the trial offers a concrete summary—a practical
application of the methods set forth in the treatise. The movement from Gerson’s wider focus on “teaching” to a case involving
female mysticism is telling, as are the details of the woman’s spiritual practice. For she is possessed of many of the most
distinguished hallmarks of female piety: raptures, extreme abstemiousness, miraculous knowledge of the sins of others, and
marvelous penance offered as intercession for souls. The only deviation from this celebrated projection of female sanctity
is her claim to intercede in hell, rather than purgatory.
⁴
There were, of course, heresies such as certain strains of Catharism which denied that God would eternally condemn anyone
to hell. And yet given the coherence of the woman’s spiritual profile, one cannot help but wonder whether the substitution
of hell for purgatory was not a convenient clerical invention—assuming the woman existed. Such an error may have helped to
support the need for the harsh tenor of this inquisition (Marguerite Porete had not been tortured; nor had Joan of Arc, for
that matter), as opposed to the gentler, more cerebral processes applied to the probation of suspect scholarly teaching. The
anonymous mystic’s error, in conjunction with the revelation of her epilepsy, would serve to discredit the other manifestations
of her piety.

Authors who clearly perceived themselves as successors to Gerson’s legacy would increasingly look to inquisitional procedure
in its sternest guise for the control of female mysticism. John Nider offers an exemplary account of an unbound virgin in
Regensburg of about fifty-three years of age, whose itinerant life (a fact that foreclosed the possibility of stable confessional
practice) and incautious words attracted the attention of the religious authorities. When she was questioned, it emerged that
her revelations had allegedly taught her to think of herself as “sinless and incapable of error,” “mother of the church of
Christ,” and as “more blessed than the prince of the apostles when he was alive.”
⁵
She was, moreover, prepared to go to the flames for her beliefs. The archdeacon, however, saw things differently. Applying
the bold maxim of the Book of Isaiah (28.19) that “vexation alone will make you understand what you hear,” he urged torture
as a means of instilling right understanding. But it was suggested to Nider that he preserve the woman’s trust by indicating
his distaste for this prospect in her presence, then absenting himself from the torture altogether. When interrogated under
torture, she denied that she had either teachers or disciples in her errors. Nider recounts: