Holy Matter , livre ebook
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2014
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249
pages
English
Ebook
2014
Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Publié par
Date de parution
29 mars 2014
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9780801470950
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
A magnificent proliferation of new Christ-centered devotional practices-including affective meditation, imitative suffering, crusade, Eucharistic cults and miracles, passion drama, and liturgical performance-reveals profound changes in the Western Christian temperament of the twelfth century and beyond. This change has often been attributed by scholars to an increasing emphasis on God's embodiment in the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ. In Holy Matter, Sara Ritchey offers a fresh narrative explaining theological and devotional change by journeying beyond the human body to ask how religious men and women understood the effects of God's incarnation on the natural, material world. She finds a remarkable willingness on the part of medieval Christians to embrace the material world-its trees, flowers, vines, its worms and wolves-as a locus for divine encounter. Early signs that perceptions of the material world were shifting can be seen in reformed communities of religious women in the twelfth-century Rhineland. Here Ritchey finds that, in response to the constraints of gendered regulations and spiritual ideals, women created new identities as virgins who, like the mother of Christ, impelled the world's re-creation-their notion of the world's re-creation held that God created the world a second time when Christ was born. In this second act of creation God was seen to be present in the physical world, thus making matter holy. Ritchey then traces the diffusion of this new religious doctrine beyond the Rhineland, showing the profound impact it had on both women and men in professed religious life, especially Franciscans in Italy and Carthusians in England. Drawing on a wide range of sources including art, liturgy, prayer, poetry, meditative guides, and treatises of spiritual instruction, Holy Matter reveals an important transformation in late medieval devotional practice-a shift from metaphor to material, from gazing on images of a God made visible in the splendor of natural beauty to looking at the natural world itself, and finding there God's presence and promise of salvation.
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Publié par
Date de parution
29 mars 2014
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9780801470950
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
HOLY MATTER
HOLY MATTER
CHANGI NG PE RCE PT I ONS OF T HE MAT E RI AL WORL D I N L AT E ME DI E VAL CHRI ST I ANI T Y
S a r a R i tc h e y
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London
Copyright © 2014 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2014 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Ritchey, Sara Margaret, author. Holy matter : changing perceptions of the material world in late medieval Christianity / Sara Ritchey. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9780801452536 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Nature—Religious aspects—Catholic Church— History of doctrines—Middle Ages, 600–1500. 2. Spiritual life—Christianity—History of doctrines—Middle Ages, 600–1500. 3. Natural theology—History of doctrines— Middle Ages, 600–1500. 4. Theology, Doctrinal— History—Middle Ages, 600–1500. I. Title. BX1795.N36R58 2014 231.709'02—dc23 2013050341
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.
Cloth printing
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Co nt e nts
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction
1. The Mirror of Holy Virginity 2.ViriditasandVirginitas3. Clare of Assisi and the Tree of Crucifixion 4. The Franciscan Bough 5. An Estranged Wilderness Conclusion
Bibliography 205 Index 227
1 24 55
91 127 159 196
A c k n o w l e d g m e nt s
While developing this book, I attended an annual conference on the history of medieval Catholic doctrine and practice. The thematic strain of the meeting that year was “Nature,” making this con ference an ideal opportunity to engage multidisciplinary approaches to the nebulous concept with which I had been grappling for some time. At the opening of the conference, all of the attendees—men and women, religious and secular, professors and graduate students—intermingled comfortably prior to the morning sessions, chattering over coffee and bagels, making introductions, renewing acquaintances. But once the panels commenced, a disturbing distinction emerged. We scattered into separate wings of the build ing along gendered lines. Down one hall, the majority of women attended the sessions on “spirituality,” which featured female scholars and addressed medieval women’s writings or women’s lives. Down another, the sessions on “theology” were attended primarily by men and featured mostly male speak ers who addressed the likes of Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Scotus. We were at an impasse before a single presider had introduced speakers. During the afternoon’s keynote, a mechanism of our division became apparent. In a lovely and thoughtprovoking lecture, our esteemed speaker addressed the subject of nature and grace in the theology of Aquinas. The audience responded eagerly, with many pressing questions that carried us well over the allotted time frame. One of those questions came from a woman involved in pastoral education. She reframed our speaker’s presentation of Scholastic terminology and process through powerful images of a moth er’s love, asking if it might be appropriate to consider Aquinas’s formula tion of the relationship between nature and grace in maternal terms. “Yes,” responded the speaker, to the collective relief of a fatigued audience who had struggled for the last two hours properly to grasp that tricky relationship and had finally, through this verbal picture, settled upon a stable framework. “But,” he continued, “that’s not theology.” Next question. That moment resonated with me. Maybe it wasn’t theology. Not in the systematic sense, at least. But then what was it? I had long been conflicted
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viiiACKNOWLEDGMENTS
about the images I repeatedly encountered in medieval monastic texts, images that I expected had something important to tell us about how women and men once comprehended God’s relationship to the natural world; how, through the world’s material, they achieved such intense love for and inti macywiththisradicalothertheycalledGod.ButIstumbledoverreconstruct ingandlabelingthisrelationship,mixedupasitwasinmultiplemodesofexpression, blended between personal, experiential narratives and doctrinal assertions. And so I began to rethink how monastic communities committed to institutional restructuring communicated their ideas, their logic, about God’s being in the world and how best to heed it. This study began as a sustained meditation on a specific, pervasive image in medieval Christian art and prayer—trees. My fascination with nonreal trees, with arboreal metaphors and virtual forests, struck many as strange and unfashionable. Indeed it was. “Why trees?” I stumbled over responses, searched for an answer every time the question was posed: “They were everywhere in devotional literature.” “They indicated spiritual filiation.” “They guided the imagination from the material to the immaterial.” All quite unsatisfactory, I admit. One senior scholar quipped that surely I was missing the forest. So I directed my gaze outward and retreated from the trees. I immersed myself in questions of environmentality, in objectoriented ontology, in natural theology. But the dense forest that was slowly emerg ing resisted this new approach and created tension in my readings. I found myself returning once more to the unrelenting presence of trees in medieval religious writing. The study that follows represents my long reckoning with them. I hope it accounts for some of the forest as well. This book is the product of numerous conversations and friendships and many kinds of assistance—all of which have served to recreate its author. Ali son Frazier and Martha Newman have been supremely generous scholars and devoted mentors to me. Together, they lit the torch that has since led my way. Alison’s exquisite sensitivity to the activity of saints’ cults awakened me to a whole new world for exploration and generated my first queries into premod ern perceptions of materiality. Martha’s command of the complex dynamic between individuals, ideals, and institutions pushed me to ground culture in community and provided me with the critical apparatus to appreciate the gendered construction of my sources. Alison and Martha each carefully read drafts of this book’s various chapters, refining arguments and strengthening prose. For their continuing efforts to keep me afloat, even encouraged, in the oftenanguishing business of academia I am exceedingly grateful. At the University of Chicago, I was honored to learn from Rachel Ful ton Brown, Amy Hollywood, James Ketelaar, Bernard McGinn, Lucy Pick,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
and William Sewell. I am grateful that Rachel supported my earliest inter est in trees. My perception of Christian theology and devotion has been immensely enhanced by her instruction. Amy’s questions and critiques brought a whole new level of interpretation to the texts I examine here, enabling me to think synthetically about their more poignant images and recurring themes. My experience at Chicago was enlivened by friendships with Daniel Gullo, Julian Hendrix, Anthony Perron, and the editorial crew atCritical Inquiry,Alice Eckstein, Lauraespecially Jay Williams. Thankfully, Scholl, Ellen Haskell, and Dominick Talvacchio victualed me daily, goading me to shut down the computer and connect with other humans, often in the delightful environs of our rooftop at sunset. Joshua Yumibe, in particular, endured my innumerable messes, supplied expert technical assistance, and provided a model of intellectual sophistication and serenity that I have ever admired. I have had great fortune in the many colleagues and interlocutors who have helped me to navigate the scholar’s world. For their attention, guidance, and support, I am especially grateful to Jane Chance, Bill Cook, Mary Dzon, Monica Green, Sarah McNamer, Jeff Rider, and Anna Taylor. For their kind assistance and advice on specific points in this book’s images or arguments, I thank Winston Black, Gaper Cerkovnik, Glyn Coppack, Julian Luxford, Dennis Martin, Barbara Newman, Willemien Otten, and Jan Ziolkowski. The support of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette has been critical to the completion of this project. I am grateful to the university for a research travel grant, publication subvention, and for the patience and friendship of my colleagues, especially Chad Parker, Emily Deal, Pearson and Lisa Cross, Rich Frankel, Mary FarmerKaiser, Robert Carriker, Arthur White, Michael Martin, and Jordan Kellman. I am extraordinarily thankful for my students, who have given my work a sense of purpose and have kept me anchored in the needs of the present. My life in southwest Louisiana has been sig nificantly invigorated by the opportunity to work with my dear friend and feminist sage, Sarah Brabant, and with Billi Lacombe and the staff of Faith House of Acadiana. Numerous institutions have funded research and travel without which this project would have been impossible. I thank the University of Chicago, the Mellon Foundation, the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, the Huntington Library, the British Academy, the National Endowment for the Humani ties, and the German Historical Institute. I am equally grateful to the many skilled librarians who have helped me along the way, especially those at the Joseph Regenstein Library, the British Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Biblioteca del Sacro Convento in Assisi, the Getty Library,
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