Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters

by Catherine M. Mooney (Editor), Caroline Walker Bynum (Contributor)

"These studies . . . not only illuminate the past with a fierce and probing light but also raise, with nuance and power, fundamental issues of interpretation and method."—from the Foreword, by Caroline Walker Bynum

Female saints, mystics, and visionaries have been much studied in recent years. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to the ways in which their experiences and voices were mediated by the men who often composed their vitae, served as their editors and scribes, or otherwise encouraged, protected, and collaborated with the women in their writing projects. What strategies can be employed to discern and distinguish the voices of these high and late medieval women from those of their scribes and confessors? In those rare cases where we have both the women's own writings and writings about them by their male contemporaries, how do the women's self-portrayals diverge from the male portrayals of them? Finally, to what extent are these portrayals of sanctity by the saints and their contemporaries influenced not so much by gender as by genre?

Catherine Mooney brings together a distinguished group of contributors who explore these and other issues as they relate to seven holy women and their male interpreters and one male saint who claims to incorporate the words of a female follower in an account of his own life.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, Medieval, Gender

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Catherine Mooney holds a B.A. in History from Saint Louis University; an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School; an M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. in medieval history from Yale University. She has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she was also co-coordinator of the Gender Studies program, and at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2009 she was awarded a research fellowship and served as visiting professor of Franciscan Studies at the Franciscan Institute in St. Bonaventure, New York. She has served on the boards of the Society for Medieval Feminist Studies and Monastic Matrix. While living in rural Argentina during its military dictatorship and “Dirty War,” she worked as a human rights advocate and taught in a seminary for campesino catechists and base community leaders. In addition to teaching and lecturing in universities and at scholarly conferences, she offers presentations and workshops in various pastoral venues and is active in several human rights efforts.

Dr. Mooney's work has received support from the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation.

Reviews

[Mir]

Read from this volume:

Bynum's Foreward. There is "no saint without an audience."

Mooney, "Voice, Gender, and the Portrayal of Sanctity."
Are saints voices gendered? Gendered imagery is fluid (eg men also use nuptial imagery re: Christ)
How can we distinguish the voices of saints from their interpreters? Women saints use more active and assertive language in self-description than male biographers do when speaking of them.

Anne Clark, "Holy Woman or Unworthy Vessel?" on Elizabeth of Schonau
Abbot went on tour preaching her visions.
Oral dissemination makes it easier to suppress controversial material.

[Ella]

Read for Michaelmas Term Primary Tutorial: Medieval Female Mystics and for medieval studies honours thesis