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The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages
According to an old story, a woman concealed her sex and ruled as pope for a few years in the ninth century. Pope Joan was not betrayed by a lover or discovered by an enemy; her downfall came when she went into labor during a papal procession through the streets of Rome. From the myth of Joan to the experiences of saints, nuns, and ordinary women, The Oldest Vocation brings to life both the richness and the troubling contradictions of Christian motherhood in medieval Europe.
After tracing the roots of medieval ideologies of motherhood in early Christianity, Clarissa W. Atkinson reconstructs the physiological assumptions underlying medieval notions about women's bodies and reproduction; inherited from Greek science and popularized through the practice of midwifery, these assumptions helped shape common beliefs about what mothers were. She then describes the development of "spiritual motherhood" both as a concept emerging out of monastic ideologies in the early Middle Ages and as a reality in the lives of certain remarkable women. Atkinson explores the theological dimensions of medieval motherhood by discussing the cult of the Virgin Mary in twelfth-century art, story, and religious expression. She also offers a fascinating new perspective on the women saints of the later Middle Ages, many of whom were mothers; their lives and cults forged new relationships between maternity and holiness. The Oldest Vocation concludes where most histories of motherhood begin-in early modern Europe, when the family was institutionalized as a center of religious and social organization.
After tracing the roots of medieval ideologies of motherhood in early Christianity, Clarissa W. Atkinson reconstructs the physiological assumptions underlying medieval notions about women's bodies and reproduction; inherited from Greek science and popularized through the practice of midwifery, these assumptions helped shape common beliefs about what mothers were. She then describes the development of "spiritual motherhood" both as a concept emerging out of monastic ideologies in the early Middle Ages and as a reality in the lives of certain remarkable women. Atkinson explores the theological dimensions of medieval motherhood by discussing the cult of the Virgin Mary in twelfth-century art, story, and religious expression. She also offers a fascinating new perspective on the women saints of the later Middle Ages, many of whom were mothers; their lives and cults forged new relationships between maternity and holiness. The Oldest Vocation concludes where most histories of motherhood begin-in early modern Europe, when the family was institutionalized as a center of religious and social organization.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1991
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About the author
Clarissa W. Atkinson
6 books3 followersIn an earlier life, I taught and wrote books and articles about medieval history, including "The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages" and "Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe."
More recently I turned my attention to the 1950s and found Claudia Cumberbatch Jones, the black radical feminist who was deported from the U.S. in the McCarthy years. In London she founded and edited the West Indian Gazette. I published an essay about her in the Women’s Review of Books in 2006: “A Strange and Terrible Sight in Our Country.” In 2008-2009 I was a Fellow at the Charles Warren Center at Harvard University conducting further research on Claudia Jones.
Lately I’ve been thinking and writing about coming of age in the 1950s, among other subjects.
More recently I turned my attention to the 1950s and found Claudia Cumberbatch Jones, the black radical feminist who was deported from the U.S. in the McCarthy years. In London she founded and edited the West Indian Gazette. I published an essay about her in the Women’s Review of Books in 2006: “A Strange and Terrible Sight in Our Country.” In 2008-2009 I was a Fellow at the Charles Warren Center at Harvard University conducting further research on Claudia Jones.
Lately I’ve been thinking and writing about coming of age in the 1950s, among other subjects.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 1, 2022
Study on Pope Joan
Feminism on the early Christian. Its about the nature of mother and women from ancient to nowadays, but the focus is that on the history of church when Pope Joan took her reigns in Roman Catholic.
Feminism on the early Christian. Its about the nature of mother and women from ancient to nowadays, but the focus is that on the history of church when Pope Joan took her reigns in Roman Catholic.
June 7, 2021
In the ancient and early medieval era doctors had some odd views of women. For example, they thought that a womb could behave independently of a woman’s will, like a wild animal. This meant that medical treatment for a woman could include loud noises to ‘scare’ the womb into behaving.
This book is full of interesting facts like this, which are fully documented with copious footnotes. The last quarter of the book is devoted to indexes, bibliographies and materials to follow up its claims. This makes the book a very informative source for ancient and medieval views about women.
Understanding the peculiarities of ancient opinions about women helps modern readers to understand why prejudices were sustained for so long. For example, in the early medieval era women were often judged harshly, as unreliable. This may have been crude prejudice, but it also found justification in contemporary science. Women were classified in terms of elements as ‘wet and cold,’ as opposed to men who were considered ‘dry and warm’ (Kindle 10%). Women’s intrinsic wetness meant that they would obviously (in the opinion of ancient thinkers) be slippery and thus unreliable. In ways like this, science conveniently justified patriarchal biases about limiting, controlling and not-trusting women.
Overall, the book argues that Christianity was a radical movement which (initially) subverted culturally oppressive views of women (2%). Previous cultures valued women as producers of children, but Christianity (initially) judged women on the quality of their discipleship.
However, before the closure of the New Testament canon, wider cultural views of women can be seen re-appearing in Christianity, as younger women are urged to marry and bear children in the Pastoral Epistles.
Throughout the ancient and medieval period, theology pulled in two subtly different directions. Virginity was lauded and gave a rank structure for holy women. Virgins were considered best, followed by widows and then wives (44%). However, mothers could leap to sanctity when they had saintly children, as occurred with St Monica who was the mother of St Augustine.
The author thinks that the rise of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century led to poverty beginning to supplant the focus on virginity (73%). This is an interesting idea and it is argued well. But I wasn’t convinced. The fact remains that the Catholic Church has continued into the modern era to classify and celebrate its female saints according to whether they were ‘virgins’ or not. It has never had a category for holy ‘poor-women.’
By the time of the reformation, motherhood and wifely virtues came to the fore. This was initially due to Protestantism’s rejection of convents as a kind of 'theological error,' due to what it criticised as a works-based religion. Catholics disagreed but their post-reformation spirituality also shows a much greater recognition of women achieving holiness through their roles as wives and mothers.
This is a very readable and comprehensive survey of medieval attitudes towards motherhood in Christian Europe. Some conclusions can be queried, and it would have been good to have seen more reference to non-European sources. However, it is still a wide ranging collection of sources and voices which readers will undoubtedly find informative.
This book is full of interesting facts like this, which are fully documented with copious footnotes. The last quarter of the book is devoted to indexes, bibliographies and materials to follow up its claims. This makes the book a very informative source for ancient and medieval views about women.
Understanding the peculiarities of ancient opinions about women helps modern readers to understand why prejudices were sustained for so long. For example, in the early medieval era women were often judged harshly, as unreliable. This may have been crude prejudice, but it also found justification in contemporary science. Women were classified in terms of elements as ‘wet and cold,’ as opposed to men who were considered ‘dry and warm’ (Kindle 10%). Women’s intrinsic wetness meant that they would obviously (in the opinion of ancient thinkers) be slippery and thus unreliable. In ways like this, science conveniently justified patriarchal biases about limiting, controlling and not-trusting women.
Overall, the book argues that Christianity was a radical movement which (initially) subverted culturally oppressive views of women (2%). Previous cultures valued women as producers of children, but Christianity (initially) judged women on the quality of their discipleship.
However, before the closure of the New Testament canon, wider cultural views of women can be seen re-appearing in Christianity, as younger women are urged to marry and bear children in the Pastoral Epistles.
Throughout the ancient and medieval period, theology pulled in two subtly different directions. Virginity was lauded and gave a rank structure for holy women. Virgins were considered best, followed by widows and then wives (44%). However, mothers could leap to sanctity when they had saintly children, as occurred with St Monica who was the mother of St Augustine.
The author thinks that the rise of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century led to poverty beginning to supplant the focus on virginity (73%). This is an interesting idea and it is argued well. But I wasn’t convinced. The fact remains that the Catholic Church has continued into the modern era to classify and celebrate its female saints according to whether they were ‘virgins’ or not. It has never had a category for holy ‘poor-women.’
By the time of the reformation, motherhood and wifely virtues came to the fore. This was initially due to Protestantism’s rejection of convents as a kind of 'theological error,' due to what it criticised as a works-based religion. Catholics disagreed but their post-reformation spirituality also shows a much greater recognition of women achieving holiness through their roles as wives and mothers.
This is a very readable and comprehensive survey of medieval attitudes towards motherhood in Christian Europe. Some conclusions can be queried, and it would have been good to have seen more reference to non-European sources. However, it is still a wide ranging collection of sources and voices which readers will undoubtedly find informative.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews