Medieval Women's Writing

Diane Watt

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780745632568, 9780745632551
• eBook ISBN: 9780745657639
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Literaturkritik

Medieval Women's Writing is a major new contribution to our understanding of women's writing in England, 1100-1500.

The most comprehensive account to date, it includes writings in Latin and French as well as English, and works for as well as by women. Marie de France, Clemence of Barking, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and the Paston women are discussed alongside the Old English lives of women saints, The Life of Christina of Markyate, the St Albans Psalter, and the legends of women saints by Osbern Bokenham.

Medieval Women's Writing addresses these key questions:

• Who were the first women authors in the English canon?
• What do we mean by women's writing in the Middle Ages?
• What do we mean by authorship?
• How can studying medieval writing contribute to our understanding of women's literary history?

Diane Watt argues that female patrons, audiences, readers, and even subjects contributed to the production of texts and their meanings, whether written by men or women. Only an understanding of textual production as collaborative enables us to grasp fully women's engagement with literary culture. This radical rethinking of early womens literary history has major implications for all scholars working on medieval literature, on ideas of authorship, and on women's writing in later periods. The book will become standard reading for all students of these debates.

1

Christina of Markyate (c.1096–after 1155)

Introduction

The Life of Christina of Markyate is an appropriate starting point for this study of writing by and for women, raising as it does questions of patronage, authorship, collaboration, and readership.¹ The Latin biography of a sometime recluse and putative saint, it was written before her death, and reveals an intimate knowledge of its subject. Its anonymous writer was a monk of St Albans who knew Christina. The Life provides vivid insights into the difficulties and hardships Christina endured and sometimes overcame in her pursuit of spiritual chastity and a life dedicated to God. An understanding of the political, social and religious tensions of the period is crucial to any interpretation of this work. As an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman devoted to God in post-Conquest England, Christina’s position – both privileged and subordinate – was complex, as the descriptions of her fraught relationships with both kin and the wider community reveal. Ultimately, Christina inspired a number of followers, men as well as women, French as well as English, and having taken her vows in c.1131, became prioress and foundress of Markyate in 1145.

The famous illustrated St Albans Psalter, which was produced or adapted for Christina and her priory, provides us with a material as well as a visual, literary, devotional and cultural context for reading the Life.² It also provides us with a pre-text for reading the Life because it was produced first, and because the Life may have grown out of and responded to it. The Psalter was probably commissioned by the Frenchman Geoffrey de Gorran (abbot of St Albans between 1119 and 1146), which means it would have been produced some time after 1119, and it was almost certainly presented to Christina around the early to mid-1130s. However one distinct section, the Alexis quire, seems to have been written in part and copied by Geoffrey himself and added to the Psalter between the mid-1130s and 1139–40. Geoffrey may subsequently also have commissioned The Life of Christina of Markyate, probably in the early to mid-1140s, in other words in his final years. It might have been continued in the short period following his death, but it was certainly concluded abruptly. While one part of the Psalter directly addresses Christina herself and includes very personal reflections on the relationship between Geoffrey and Christina, the Life is aimed at Geoffrey as well as at the religious communities at St Albans and Markyate. In this chapter I examine the complex relationship between the St Albans Psalter and The Life of Christina of Markyate, paying attention to the implications of the notion that Christina’s early eremitic life offered Anglo-Saxon resistance to Norman and French colonialism. This resistance may have been countered by her profession as a nun and by the production of the St Albans Psalter, but is nevertheless partially articulated in the hybrid text of Christina’s Life.

The chapter is made up of three parts. The first, ‘Viewing and reading the St Albans Psalter’, focuses in detail on one short text, the ‘Discourse on Good and Evil’, that appears in the Alexis quire and that is arguably composed by Geoffrey. I am particularly interested here not only in what this text reveals about the spiritual friendship between Geoffrey and Christina, but also in what it tells us about the clearly symbiotic relationship between author and reader, patron and recipient, writer and subject. The second part is entitled ‘The Life and death of Prioress Christina’. Taking as a starting point an entry relating to St Hilda or Hild, abbess of Whitby, in the St Albans Psalter calendar, it argues that the beginning of The Life of Christina of Markyate suggestively echoes Bede’s life of Hild. Although Hild’s story ends very differently to Christina’s, these resonances draw our attention to the Life’s debts to the hagiographic genre generally and to the Anglo-Saxon tradition in particular. The final part, ‘ “My Sunday daughter”: reading Christina’s Life’, looks at the degree and nature of collaboration in the writing of the Life and develops the idea that the Life, despite being commissioned by Geoffrey, fleetingly articulates a repressed Anglo-Saxon voice. This is done, partly through foregrounding insular traditions as well as Christina’s links with the indigenous community, partly through veiled anti-French sentiment, but more strikingly through recording the words of her fellow hermit Roger. In summary, the Alexis quire of the St Albans Psalter defines Christina’s piety in terms of Continental and specifically French models. Its production supports the theory that Geoffrey tried to redirect Christina’s life and learning along lines more familiar to him. The Life, even as it defends Geoffrey and celebrates St Albans Abbey, nevertheless offers some resistance to this process.

Viewing and reading the St Albans Psalter

The St Albans Psalter comprises, in addition to a liturgical calendar, a series of miniatures depicting scenes from the Life of Christ, the Alexis quire, the Psalms themselves alongside canticles and collects, and a diptych of St Alban and the psalmist David. The manuscript was produced at St Albans Abbey on the instructions of Geoffrey, abbot of St Albans. It is principally the calendar entries and manuscript illustrations that reveal that it was either designed from its conception for Christina herself, or adapted at some point – perhaps around the time of or in the years following her profession in 1131 – for presentation to her. Two of the illustrations provide the strongest evidence that the Psalter was dedicated to Christina, both emphasizing her intercessory role. In the first, a historiated initial, Christina is represented pleading for the St Albans monks (Psalter, 285). In the second she is depicted praying with her nuns for Geoffrey (Psalter, 403). Yet if Geoffrey was responsible for the Psalter, others contributed to it. Christina’s sister Margaret, ‘a virgin of admirable simplicity and uprightness’ (Life, 141), joined the growing community of recluses around Christina at Markyate and subsequently entered the Priory. Margaret may have been responsible for the obits added to the calendar for Christina and members of her family. Tellingly, Margaret’s own death is not commemorated, confirming that she was at any rate still alive when these additions were made.³

Equally noteworthy is the fact that stitch marks reveal that fabric coverings or curtains were added at an early stage to protect a number of the miniatures in the Psalter (although none in the Alexis quire), often at the expense of the surrounding text. It is feasible that Christina, a talented seamstress, may have been responsible for this innovation.⁴ As the existence of the St Albans Psalter indicates, Christina and her companions would still have placed great value on books. We do know that a copy of Christina’s Life, now lost, was owned by the Priory at Markyate, and thus must certainly have been familiar to the nuns there in the centuries after Christina’s death. Nevertheless, the evidence indicates that Christina’s own preferred form of cultural production was not the writing of books but weaving, sewing and embroidery. The Life recounts that Christina once made woven undergarments for Geoffrey of St Albans, at his request, when he was commanded to travel to Rome on official business (Life, 161–3). Other records reveal that a gift of Christina’s embroidery – mitres and sandals – was presented to Pope Adrian IV by a successor of Geoffrey, Ralph of St Albans, in 1155.⁵

From this brief summary alone it becomes apparent that the genesis of the Psalter was complex, and that Christina may have made material additions to it. Likewise, even if the Psalter was presented to and adapted for Christina, it must have been intended for the use of others as well. Bella Millett has argued that the Psalter was designed for a larger audience or a range of readers with varying levels of literacy rather than for just one individual.⁶ The canticles, collects or prayers, and litany in the St Albans Psalter are appropriate for use in a religious community of women such as that at Markyate.⁷ Some aspects of the Psalter, such as the miniatures of the Life of Christ, which include an usually large number of female figures, suggest a general ‘feminine bias’ and indicate that it was, in part, a woman-oriented text.⁸

At the heart of the St Albans Psalter lies the Alexis quire itself. This seems to have been compiled as an independent project and at some later stage integrated into the Psalter. The Alexis quire is made up of a series of items. It takes its name from the most extended piece, the French Chanson of St Alexis. It also includes a letter of Pope Gregory, copied in both Latin and French; three illustrations of Christ at Emmaus; and a Latin psychomachia or conflict of the soul. Geoffrey of St Albans could well have been or overseen the scribe who copied out the quire.⁹ He may also have translated and composed parts of it. Yet if we accept that Geoffrey produced the quire for Christina it presents us with a linguistic problem. French was the language of the Norman aristocracy, but, although Christina’s mother, Beatrix, may have been an incomer (given her Latinate name), it is reasonable to assume that Christina would have been brought up speaking English. It is possible that the letter of St Gregory, copied as it is in French as well as Latin, was intended for instructive purposes. Geoffrey may well have been trying to teach Christina or improve her knowledge of the language of the Church and of his own mother tongue, which was also the language of the convents. Female literacy was limited in this period, but according to her Life from at least the point when she first fled her family Christina studied the Psalms (Life, 93, 99). She might have read and recited or sung them either in a version translated into or glossed in English or in Latin. In summary, the evidence indicates that Christina had some ability to read, possibly in all three languages. At the same time, it is feasible that the quire, like the Psalter as a whole, was intended for collective consumption. The chanson, for example, is introduced in its prologue as a narrative familiar to author or scribe and reader from recitations where both have been present:

Here begins the pleasant song and pious account of that noble lord named Eufemien and of the life of his blessed son about whom we have heard readings and song.

[Ici cumencet amiable cancun e spiritel raisun d’iceol noble barun eufemien par num e de la vie de sum filz boneuret del quel nus avum oit lire e canter.]¹⁰

Furthermore, the quire was also designed to be viewed both by Christina and by her companions, who may have been less educated. The letter of Gregory explicitly (and famously) advocates the use of images to encourage the piety of those who cannot read:

For the thing that writing conveys to those who read, that is what a picture shows to the illiterate; in the picture itself those who are ignorant see what they ought to follow.

[Nam quod legentibus scriptura hoc ignotis prestat pictura, qua in ipsa ignorantes vident quid sequi debeant.]¹¹

The images are there not only as adornments but also to teach and instruct. While the relationship between image and text is not always so straightforward within the Psalter, the illustrations in the quire are key to the meaning of the quire and of the ‘Discourse on Good and Evil’ in particular.

A great deal of recent critical attention has focused on the special significance the Chanson of St Alexis gains when considered alongside Christina’s Life. Nonetheless, as Jane Geddes suggests, the two pages (Psalter, 71–2) containing the Latin psychomachia ‘are probably the most important and impenetrable in the whole book’.¹² Certainly they offer a useful starting point for my analysis and evaluation of the manuscript as a whole. The text of this discourse runs around the margins of two large illustrations. The first illustration is a depiction of the resurrected Christ vanishing from the table where he had broken bread with his disciples (Luke 24. 30–1). Two of the disciples look on in astonishment as Christ disappears upwards through the ceiling of the room. This picture would no doubt have held a particular meaning for Christina. One of the last miracles described in her Life concerns a series of encounters with a mysterious pilgrim, identified in the text as either Christ or an angel (Life, 183–9). On his second appearance the pilgrim joined Christina and her sister Margaret for a meal, but only tasted the food prepared for him. On the next occasion he vanished from the church in which Christina and her fellow nuns had been attending the Christmas mass. The second illustration is an illuminated initial B (for Beatus or Blessed). This serves as a frontispiece for the Psalms, the next item in the manuscript. It depicts David holding his harp and a book of Psalms, with a giant dove whispering in his ear. Above this initial is a smaller illustration of two knights on horseback locked in combat.

The text of this discourse itself seems to be original to Geoffrey. It begins with an abstract account of the battle that goes on between the ‘heavenly athletes’¹³ and the devil and his followers. In developing the metaphor of the chivalric Christian warrior, direct reference is made to the picture of the fighting chevaliers on the next page. It is noteworthy that this part of the text uses gendered metaphors of a sort also found in Christina’s Life: the good Christian is ‘armed in a manly spirit’¹⁴ and ‘must be manly and perfect in the constancy of … steadfastness’.¹⁵ As the narrative proceeds the conte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Acknowledgements
• A Note on the Texts
• Introduction
• 1 Christina of Markyate (c.1096–after 1155)
• 2 Marie de France (fl. 1180)
• 3 Legends and Lives of Women Saints (Late Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Centuries)
• 4 Julian of Norwich (1342/3–after 1416)
• 5 Margery Kempe (c.1373–after 1439)
• 6 The Paston Letters (1440–1489)
• Afterword
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Index