1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910814181603321

Autore

Elliott Dyan <1954->

Titolo

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

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2012

ISBN

1-283-89765-2

0-8122-0693-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (477 p.)

Collana

The Middle Ages series

Disciplina

241/.660820940902

Soggetti

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

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

Nota di contenuto

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

Sommario/riassunto

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.