The bride of Christ goes to hell : metaphor and embodiment in the lives of pious women, 200-1500 / Dyan Elliott.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elliott, Dyan, 1954-

Series:

Middle Ages series.

The Middle Ages series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Virginity--Religious aspects--Christianity--History of doctrines--Early church, ca. 30-600.

Virginity.

Virginity--Religious aspects--Christianity--History of doctrines--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Marriage--Religious aspects--Christianity--History of doctrines--Early church, ca. 30-600.

Marriage.

Marriage--Religious aspects--Christianity--History of doctrines--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Women in Christianity--History--Early church, ca. 30-600.

Women in Christianity.

Women in Christianity--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (477 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The early Christian writer Tertullian first applied the epithet "bride of Christ" to the uppity virgins of Carthage as a means of enforcing female obedience. Henceforth, the virgin as Christ's spouse was expected to manifest matronly modesty and due submission, hobbling virginity's ancient capacity to destabilize gender roles. In the early Middle Ages, the focus on virginity and the attendant anxiety over its possible loss reinforced the emphasis on claustration in female religious communities, while also profoundly disparaging the nonvirginal members of a given community. With the rising importance of intentionality in determining a person's spiritual profile in the high Middle Ages, the title of bride could be applied and appropriated to laywomen who were nonvirgins as well. Such instances of democratization coincided with the rise of bridal mysticism and a progressive somatization of female spirituality. These factors helped cultivate an increasingly literal and eroticized discourse: women began to undergo mystical enactments of their union with Christ, including ecstatic consummations and vivid phantom pregnancies. Female mystics also became increasingly intimate with their confessors and other clerical confidants, who were sometimes represented as stand-ins for the celestial bridegroom. The dramatic merging of the spiritual and physical in female expressions of religiosity made church authorities fearful, an anxiety that would coalesce around the figure of the witch and her carnal induction into the Sabbath.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. A Match Made in Heaven

Chapter 2. The Church Fathers and the Embodied Bride

Chapter 3. The Barbarian Queen

Chapter 4. An Age of Affect, 1050-1200 (1)

Chapter 5. An Age of Affect, 1050-1200 (2)

Chapter 6. The Eroticized Bride of Hagiography

Chapter 7. Descent into Hell

Conclusion

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [409]-450) and index.

ISBN:

9781283897655

1283897652

9780812206937

0812206932

OCLC:

822890083