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Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA
Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages
From the Introduction:
The opportunity to rethink and republish several of my early articles in combination with a new essay on the thirteenth century has led me to consider the continuity-both of argument and of approach-that underlies them. In one sense, their interrelationship is obvious. The first two address a question that was more in the forefront of scholarship a dozen years ago than it is today: the question of differences among religious orders. These two essays set out a method of reading texts for imagery and borrowings as well as for spiritual teaching in order to determine whether individuals who live in different institutional settings hold differing assumptions about the significance of their lives. The essays apply the method to the broader question of differences between regular canons and monks and the narrower question of differences between one kind of monk--the Cistercians--and other religious groups, monastic and nonmonastic, of the twelfth century. The third essay draws on some of the themes of the first two, particularly the discussion of canonical and Cistercian conceptions of the individual brother as example, to suggest an interpretation of twelfth-century religious life as concerned with the nature of groups as well as with affective expression. The fourth essay, again on Cistercian monks, elaborates themes of the first three. Its subsidiary goals are to provide further evidence on distinctively Cistercian attitudes and to elaborate the Cistercian ambivalence about vocation that I delineate in the essay on conceptions of community. It also raises questions that have now become popular in nonacademic as well as academic circles: what significance should we give to the increase of feminine imagery in twelfth-century religious writing by males? Can we learn anything about distinctively male or female spiritualities from this feminization of language? The fifth essay differs from the others in turning to the thirteenth century rather than the twelfth, to women rather than men, to detailed analysis of many themes in a few thinkers rather than one theme in many writers; it is nonetheless based on the conclusions of the earlier studies. The sense of monastic vocation and of the priesthood, of the authority of God and self, and of the significance of gender that I find in the three great mystics of late thirteenth-century Helfta can be understood only against the background of the growing twelfth- and thirteenth-century concern for evangelism and for an approachable God, which are the basic themes of the first four essays. Such connections between the essays will be clear to anyone who reads them. There are, however, deeper methodological and interpretive continuities among them that I wish to underline here. For these studies constitute a plea for an approach to medieval spirituality that is not now--and perhaps has never been--dominant in medieval scholarship. They also provide an interpretation of the religious life of the high Middle Ages that runs against the grain of recent emphases on the emergence of "lay spirituality." I therefore propose to give, as introduction, both a discussion of recent approaches to medieval piety and a short sketch of the religious history of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, emphasizing those themes that are the context for my specific investigations. I do not want to be misunderstood. In providing here a discussion of approaches to and trends in medieval religion I am not claiming that the studies that follow constitute a general history nor that my method should replace that of social, institutional, and intellectual historians. A handful of Cistercians does not typify the twelfth century, nor three nuns the thirteenth. Religious imagery, on which I concentrate, does not tell us how people lived. But because these essays approach texts in a way others have not done, focus on imagery others have not found important, and insist, as others have not insisted, on comparing groups to other groups (e.g., comparing what is peculiarly male to what is female as well as vice versa), I want to call attention to my approach to and my interpretation of the high Middle Ages in the hope of encouraging others to ask similar questions.
The opportunity to rethink and republish several of my early articles in combination with a new essay on the thirteenth century has led me to consider the continuity-both of argument and of approach-that underlies them. In one sense, their interrelationship is obvious. The first two address a question that was more in the forefront of scholarship a dozen years ago than it is today: the question of differences among religious orders. These two essays set out a method of reading texts for imagery and borrowings as well as for spiritual teaching in order to determine whether individuals who live in different institutional settings hold differing assumptions about the significance of their lives. The essays apply the method to the broader question of differences between regular canons and monks and the narrower question of differences between one kind of monk--the Cistercians--and other religious groups, monastic and nonmonastic, of the twelfth century. The third essay draws on some of the themes of the first two, particularly the discussion of canonical and Cistercian conceptions of the individual brother as example, to suggest an interpretation of twelfth-century religious life as concerned with the nature of groups as well as with affective expression. The fourth essay, again on Cistercian monks, elaborates themes of the first three. Its subsidiary goals are to provide further evidence on distinctively Cistercian attitudes and to elaborate the Cistercian ambivalence about vocation that I delineate in the essay on conceptions of community. It also raises questions that have now become popular in nonacademic as well as academic circles: what significance should we give to the increase of feminine imagery in twelfth-century religious writing by males? Can we learn anything about distinctively male or female spiritualities from this feminization of language? The fifth essay differs from the others in turning to the thirteenth century rather than the twelfth, to women rather than men, to detailed analysis of many themes in a few thinkers rather than one theme in many writers; it is nonetheless based on the conclusions of the earlier studies. The sense of monastic vocation and of the priesthood, of the authority of God and self, and of the significance of gender that I find in the three great mystics of late thirteenth-century Helfta can be understood only against the background of the growing twelfth- and thirteenth-century concern for evangelism and for an approachable God, which are the basic themes of the first four essays. Such connections between the essays will be clear to anyone who reads them. There are, however, deeper methodological and interpretive continuities among them that I wish to underline here. For these studies constitute a plea for an approach to medieval spirituality that is not now--and perhaps has never been--dominant in medieval scholarship. They also provide an interpretation of the religious life of the high Middle Ages that runs against the grain of recent emphases on the emergence of "lay spirituality." I therefore propose to give, as introduction, both a discussion of recent approaches to medieval piety and a short sketch of the religious history of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, emphasizing those themes that are the context for my specific investigations. I do not want to be misunderstood. In providing here a discussion of approaches to and trends in medieval religion I am not claiming that the studies that follow constitute a general history nor that my method should replace that of social, institutional, and intellectual historians. A handful of Cistercians does not typify the twelfth century, nor three nuns the thirteenth. Religious imagery, on which I concentrate, does not tell us how people lived. But because these essays approach texts in a way others have not done, focus on imagery others have not found important, and insist, as others have not insisted, on comparing groups to other groups (e.g., comparing what is peculiarly male to what is female as well as vice versa), I want to call attention to my approach to and my interpretation of the high Middle Ages in the hope of encouraging others to ask similar questions.
279 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1982
14 people are currently reading
786 people want to read
About the author
Caroline Walker Bynum
28 books77 followersCaroline Walker Bynum is Professor emerita of Medieval European History at the Institute for Advanced Study, and University Professor emerita at Columbia University in the City of New York. She studies the religious ideas and practices of the European Middle Ages from late antiquity to the sixteenth century.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 3, 2025
Impeccable book. While I wasn't always gripped by the material on offer (Ch1-2 are quite dry, compared to Ch3-5), I see why Bynum is beloved. She is incredibly rigorous, and has an underlying radical politics. Her articulation of Mother Jesus paved the way for later scholars in trans history and theology.
At the heart of late medieval theology, mysticism, and devotion, were anxieties about the eucharist. The Gregorian reform led to closer contact between the clergy and laypeople. Miracles, once omnipresent and pluripotent, were institutionalised into the eucharist, a ritual sanctified by the church. While this led to a consolidation of sacred power, it also caused a crisis in the clergy. Their physical contact with laypeople generated concerns about spiritual pollution. For Bynum, maternal metaphors are (one of the many processes) mobilised to resolve this crisis, and to construct a new image of spiritual authority.
This is the birth of pastoral care. Where the clergy used to pray in distant buildings as far from the masses as possible, now they were literal administers of salvation. This new focus on embodied care, rather than abstract prayer, led to a revisioning of Christ. He was transformed from a divine prince in Heaven to a humane God on Earth. Christ's humanity became central to understanding salvation, and what was considered human and earthly was the feminine. Consequently, the apostolic life, of preaching and caring for others, became associated with motherly love.
We see this emerge in the writings of 12th century monks, who speak of Christ's breasts with spiritual ardour, of their desire for nestling against them, and of drinking their nourishing milk. Similarly, Christ's spear wound becomes a point of fascination, a site to penetrate and enter, so that one may unite with God in total bliss. Even as Christ became a mother, many monks continued to regard their souls as feminine, destined for marriage with Christ the bridegroom. And though they spoke of Christ in (what we would now consider) erotic overtones, they spoke of themselves in the same terms. They saw themselves as mothers, without any fear that such an association would emasculate them. While sodomy and heresy were used to oppress actual intersex subjects in the same period, gender fluidity was embraced at the level of spirituality. Because God as father (disciplinarian) was not enough, Christ as mother (caretaker) was needed.
The consequences of such logics reach their apotheosis in 15th century alchemy, where Jesus's humanity is conceived as Mary, his salvation understood as a return to the paradise of Eden, and his being one of divine hermaphroditism: a perfect balance of elements, divine and earthly, masculine and feminine, and, hence, a magnum opus capable of catalysing immortality. But that is a story for another time.
!⑈ˆ~ˆ!⑈
At the heart of late medieval theology, mysticism, and devotion, were anxieties about the eucharist. The Gregorian reform led to closer contact between the clergy and laypeople. Miracles, once omnipresent and pluripotent, were institutionalised into the eucharist, a ritual sanctified by the church. While this led to a consolidation of sacred power, it also caused a crisis in the clergy. Their physical contact with laypeople generated concerns about spiritual pollution. For Bynum, maternal metaphors are (one of the many processes) mobilised to resolve this crisis, and to construct a new image of spiritual authority.
This is the birth of pastoral care. Where the clergy used to pray in distant buildings as far from the masses as possible, now they were literal administers of salvation. This new focus on embodied care, rather than abstract prayer, led to a revisioning of Christ. He was transformed from a divine prince in Heaven to a humane God on Earth. Christ's humanity became central to understanding salvation, and what was considered human and earthly was the feminine. Consequently, the apostolic life, of preaching and caring for others, became associated with motherly love.
We see this emerge in the writings of 12th century monks, who speak of Christ's breasts with spiritual ardour, of their desire for nestling against them, and of drinking their nourishing milk. Similarly, Christ's spear wound becomes a point of fascination, a site to penetrate and enter, so that one may unite with God in total bliss. Even as Christ became a mother, many monks continued to regard their souls as feminine, destined for marriage with Christ the bridegroom. And though they spoke of Christ in (what we would now consider) erotic overtones, they spoke of themselves in the same terms. They saw themselves as mothers, without any fear that such an association would emasculate them. While sodomy and heresy were used to oppress actual intersex subjects in the same period, gender fluidity was embraced at the level of spirituality. Because God as father (disciplinarian) was not enough, Christ as mother (caretaker) was needed.
The consequences of such logics reach their apotheosis in 15th century alchemy, where Jesus's humanity is conceived as Mary, his salvation understood as a return to the paradise of Eden, and his being one of divine hermaphroditism: a perfect balance of elements, divine and earthly, masculine and feminine, and, hence, a magnum opus capable of catalysing immortality. But that is a story for another time.
!⑈ˆ~ˆ!⑈
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January 13, 2024Wow god really is a woman 🤩 (I’m not sure if that was the point of the book)
November 27, 2023
Masterclass, helpful
June 7, 2018
I am growing very fond of Caroline Walker Bynum as I am going through my thesis reading. I find her writing very accessible and engaging. This book focuses on 12th and 13th century Europe, looking closely in the spirituality and images that religious writers used that time. The most interesting part of the book was the take on 13th century female mystics (no surprise) but I enjoyed the book overall very much.
March 18, 2012
I read this a few years before meeting Amma and before reading 'Holy Feast Holy Fast' by the same author. I liked this book because I was moving towards a 'God-as-Mother' spirituality and also because I enjoyed the window it gave me into the spirituality of medieval women and into the political situation in the church at that time, a time of widespread 'heresy' and the beginning of the peripatetic 'evangelical' movements of the Dominicans and Franciscans. The political overtones to these times eventually led to the suppression and control of women's spirituality. But not before Jesus as Mother was revealed and celebrated!
January 7, 2014
The third and fourth essays in this collection are sophisticated meditations on the relation between metaphor and social reality. Pulling back from a wish-fulfillment strand in late '60s, early '70s feminist historiography, Walker Bynum shows that positive metaphorical language related to femininity employed by men did not necessarily mean improved social conditions for women; rather, it could imply an actual decline in the lot of real women, rather than idealized abstractions.
October 25, 2018
Bynum has had a tremendous influence on the study of spirituality since the 1970s. As one of her early works, this collection of essays does have sense of being dated. However, the arguments still hold up and Bynum's work at demonstrating the importance of religious imagery to subjects in the 12th and 13th centuries is still fascinating and worth reading. The book's various essays range in theme with the first several really drawing more on her earlier work on the differences between canons and monks and the later looking towards work related to gendered imagery. Overall, this book is still a worthy read to gain insight into these topics and as an introduction to a variety of key texts from the medieval period.
May 19, 2022
A mix of five essays on medieval spirituality, the most interesting of which is the one which gives the collection its title, discussing the use of maternal imagery and terms of address for Jesus in the 12th and 13th centuries. Bynum helpfully shows the forms that this imagery took, and discusses some of the trends that lay behind its rise. Important context for reading the mystics!
June 15, 2018
it dragged a little in the first couple chapters but this is a super foundational examination of medieval spirituality and the formation of self and authority. love dr bynum
March 6, 2019
Fundamental essays from Bynum. Essential for understanding her methodology, for Cistercian spirituality, and the twelfth-century Renaissance.
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October 10, 2021Read for primary tutorial: Medieval Female Mystics
August 5, 2025
I love Caroline Walker. Reading her work in conjunction with Leo Steinberg is such an eye opening experience.
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October 31, 2025Skipped the first three essays. If you are interested in a book written for a general audience (instead of an academic one) I'd recommend "The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female"
by Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
"Cistercians and Carthusians...are less concerned with stages of history than with personal growth, less concerned with what is appropriate to different roles than with how community functions as a setting function for growth. They are far more inclined to pour out their love of God in images of bodily closeness--eating God's honeycomb, drinking from his breast, nestling in his side or under his wings, sleeping with him as his bride. The experience from which they learn is not so much temptation as the touching and tasting of God; sin to them is fragmentation, rupture, assertion of one's differentness from the image of God that one is in the process of becoming. The idea of Christ as nursing or pregnant mother is for Cistercians one among a host of images that articulate a process of return through love of others to true dependence, a return made possible by the breaking of false dependence on the difference and otherness of the world." p. 165-166
"By the late thirteenth century, canonists and theologians had spoken again and again on the ineligibility of women for priesthood and university education --for preaching and teaching." p. 207
by Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
"Cistercians and Carthusians...are less concerned with stages of history than with personal growth, less concerned with what is appropriate to different roles than with how community functions as a setting function for growth. They are far more inclined to pour out their love of God in images of bodily closeness--eating God's honeycomb, drinking from his breast, nestling in his side or under his wings, sleeping with him as his bride. The experience from which they learn is not so much temptation as the touching and tasting of God; sin to them is fragmentation, rupture, assertion of one's differentness from the image of God that one is in the process of becoming. The idea of Christ as nursing or pregnant mother is for Cistercians one among a host of images that articulate a process of return through love of others to true dependence, a return made possible by the breaking of false dependence on the difference and otherness of the world." p. 165-166
"By the late thirteenth century, canonists and theologians had spoken again and again on the ineligibility of women for priesthood and university education --for preaching and teaching." p. 207
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December 7, 2007The tile may sound blasphemous and aspects may seem almost disturbing to some (i.e., feminine images of Jesus, i.e., nursing--not that it's saying Jesus was a woman, just that some chose to worship the feminine attributes in him) but I found it a warm, loving portrait of Jesus, especially fascinating to see how he was viewed at a certain period in history--and this was a more engrossing book than some of our grad-level readings tended to be.
COURSE: GENEDER AND RELIGION IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
COURSE: GENEDER AND RELIGION IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
August 10, 2009
HA HA! I finally finished this! I think when this came out it was probably more ground breaking than it seems to me now, since my curriculum has been heavily influenced by Bynum. But it's nice to have all this argument in one place, and some new to me, more specific arguments as well. It is definitely a book that you need to sit down and read each essay all at once - not something to read through a little bit at a time, because you'll lose track of the arguments.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews