Papers by Ericka Swensson
Comitatus-a Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2013
Keller's answer is: slippages of language. Our habitual ways of speaking about heredity, developm... more Keller's answer is: slippages of language. Our habitual ways of speaking about heredity, development, and traits routinely conflate individuals and populations, traits and trait differences, mutations with mutants. She recognizes that politics also plays a muddling role but contends that language is the chief villain. Can linguistic hygiene alone exorcise metaphysical demons? If so, then this is the book to do it.
Comitatus-a Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2013
The Catholic Historical Review, 2013
Ruth Mazo Karras coins the term unmarriage to denote heterosexual partnerships that did not amoun... more Ruth Mazo Karras coins the term unmarriage to denote heterosexual partnerships that did not amount to legitimate marriage.She prefers that term to quasi-marital union, because the latter “assumes marriage as the model that other unions only approached, an assumption I did not wish to make”(p. 8). Nevertheless, most of the book is devoted to normative issues and to contemporaneous perceptions of the differences between legitimate and illegitimate unions.
The Catholic Historical Review, 2012
General and MiscellaneousThe Bride of Christ Goes to Hell: Metaphor and Embodiment in the Lives o... more General and MiscellaneousThe Bride of Christ Goes to Hell: Metaphor and Embodiment in the Lives of Pious Women, 200-1500. By Dyan Elliott. [The Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2012. Pp. x, 662. $5995. ISBN 978-0-8122-4358-1.)In The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell, Dyan Elliott pursues themes addressed in earlier books: Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton, 1993); Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1998); and Proving Woman: Female Spirituality and Inquisitional Culture in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, 2004). Elliott employs anthropological, feminist, literary, and psychoanalytic perspectives to interpret medieval texts related to female bodies and religious experience. She argues that the metaphor "bride of Christ," as applied to virginal female religious, progresses in a downward spiral from symbol, to text, to embodiment, setting the stage for the eventual condemnation of women accused of mistaking the devil for Christ. Elliott further argues that as women embraced a "spouse of Christ" persona, some began to exhibit behaviors based on literal interpretations of the Song of Songs, behaviors that led ecclesial authorities to become suspicious of, and hostile to, female mysticism. Elliott writes, "This book is in many ways a testimony to the mystical marriage's predatory symbolism" (p. 2).To build her case, Elliott examines texts from the early church to the late Middle Ages. Key factors in her argument include the development of a burgeoning affective piety, a focus on the human Christ, devotion to the Passion and Eucharist, the erotic language of the Song of Songs, and Mary as the ultimate bride. In each of seven chapters, Elliott examines a central theme, highlighting the complexity and tensions of diverse attitudes toward marriage, virginity, sexuality, and women. She begins with the thesis that Tertullian's use of the bride metaphor functioned to exert control over consecrated virgins. As virginity (and the intact body) acquired more status (second only to martyrdom), patristic authors emphasized modest dress, strict discipline, seclusion, and clerical oversight (St. Cyprian of Carthage, Origen, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St.Ambrose, St. Augustine). Elliott then turns to the Barbarian invasions and a discussion of the sixth- and seventh-century tension between virginal and nonvirginal brides (Thurigian Queen Radegun; Frankish noble matron Rictrude). Peter Abelard and Heloise embody the twelfth-century linkage of physical and mystical marriage and the emergence of monastic heterosexual couples whose spiritual bond simulated the intimacy of an actual marriage. St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs (1135-53) is noted as a major influence on the sensual, embodied, and erotized image of the bride of Christ found in the literature of the Beguines. Elliott concludes that the trajectory of the bride image culminates in a growing suspicion of female spirituality. The final chapter, "The Descent into Hell," argues that texts by John Gerson and John Nider (Malleus maleficaruni) invert the image of the mystical marriage amidst the rise of charges of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft against women religious. …
Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies, 2015
Chiostri tra le acque. I monasteri femminili della laguna nord di Venezia nel basso Medioevo (by ... more Chiostri tra le acque. I monasteri femminili della laguna nord di Venezia nel basso Medioevo (by C. Moine
This dissertation examines the evolution of the cult of St. Mildred (d. 730), one of the most cel... more This dissertation examines the evolution of the cult of St. Mildred (d. 730), one of the most celebrated female saints in medieval England, from the seventh century through the present. Mildred was abbess of Minster Abbey, a female monastery and one of the wealthiest monasteries in Anglo-Saxon England. Within decades of her death, the nuns of her community had written her vita (saintly biography) to advertise her virtues and miracles, and quickly turned her tomb into a site for prayer and ritual devotion. The saint and her cult gained even wider recognition several centuries later, when her relics were "stolen" from their resting place at Minster Abbey by the nearby monks of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury shortly before the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Canterbury monks built a new shrine for Mildred's remains and commissioned a new and improved vita. ❧ Clergy and pilgrims continued to celebrate her feast day, pray to Mildred, and to tell her story throughout the...
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Papers by Ericka Swensson