Conflicting Femininities in Medieval German Literature by Ash Karina Marie;

Author:Ash, Karina Marie;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9 Turning the Saint into a Lady: St. Elisabeth in Thirteenth-Century Vitae

DOI: 10.4324/9781315573403-10

At the time of Elisabeth of Thuringia’s canonization (1235), the idea that a married female saint could promote both a religious ideal of piety and a worldly ideal of marriage would have appeared as striking as the promotion of a mutual devotion to both conjugal and divine love in Wolfram’s Willehalm. After all, it was not until the final decades of the thirteenth century that hagiographers offered more than two standard role models for married women: the angelically celibate wife enjoying a spiritual marriage, or the carnally afflicted wife surviving the horrors of a sexually active marriage. The canonization of St. Kunegunde (1200) exemplifies the first model of a married female saint and appealed to women like the wife of the grand prince of Poland, St. Cunegund (1224–1292), whose insistence on maintaining a celibate marriage is praised as a virtue in her vita despite its threat to the dynastic stability of her court.1 The canonization of St. Hedwig (1267) represents the second hagiographic model of a married female saint. According to a sermon celebrating her ascent into sainthood, Hedwig’s ability to survive 28 years of marriage, bear children, and remain as sexually abstinent as possible exemplifies the type of self-mortification that allows married women to become saints.2 Indeed, the first 23 years of her marriage are presented as a plea for her husband to finally take a vow of chastity and end their conjugal relations. After her plea is finally granted, any impression that there may have been marital affection during the celibate phase of her marriage is dispelled by Hedwig’s refusal to meet with her husband alone or even speak to him after they take their vows of chastity.3 Both of these models of sainthood vilify sexual intimacy within a marriage and cast a negative light on the nobility’s primary interest in marriage: procreation. Although having a member of a dynasty hailed as a saint offered the nobility “supernatural legitimation” as rulers in the long term,4 the standard thirteenth-century hagiographic models of the celibate wife and the longing-to-be-celibate wife did not suit the short-term goals of providing heirs and ensuring harmonious dynastic relations through arranged marriages.

1 Dyan Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993, 277. 2 Ortrud Reber, Die Gestaltung des Kultes weiblicher Heiliger im Spätmittelalter: Die Verehrung der Heiligen Elizabeth, Klara, Hedwig und Birgitta. Hersbruck: Pfeiffer, 1963, 193. 3 André Vauchez, The Laity in the Middle Ages: Religious Beliefs and Devotional Practices. Translated by Margery J. Schneider. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993, 189. 4 Reber, Die Gestaltung, 395. The Church did not fail to address this conflict. Popes Alexander III and Innocent III were both instrumental in expanding the concept of sanctity beyond the previous prerequisite of celibacy in ways that opened the canonization process to the married laity.5 The new process of canonization, which required testimony proving that candidates for sainthood had passed specific criteria,

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